THE TAOISEACH had belatedly recognised the serious economic challenges facing the country, but was still lacking a plan to deal with them, Fine Gael has claimed.
The party's deputy leader, Richard Bruton, said that Bertie Ahern's prescription for remedial action for the economy inspired zero confidence. "Mr Ahern has not indicated a single area in which Government policy must now change in order to meet the new situation," he said.
He was responding to comments by Mr Ahern on Monday to the effect that 2008 would be a "hard year" for the economy. Asked about figures showing that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit had risen, Mr Ahern attributed the rise to a slowdown in the housing sector.
Yesterday Mr Bruton said that Mr Ahern's comments were "essentially self-serving". He added: "The Government loudly insisted that the property boom was built on sound economic fundamentals. It consistently refused to heed IMF warnings that its budgets were making things worse.
"It massively ramped up public spending on the back of unsustainable revenues from the property sector. It agreed big pay increases in the public sector. An honest assessment would now require the Government to recognise that a significant part of the erosion of competitiveness has come directly from Government action."