FORMER TAOISEACH John Bruton was described in Brussels as taking the attitude of “the thief accusing a policeman” after he took issue with EU Commission chief José Manuel Barroso for not recognising any failings by Europe in Ireland’s economic crisis.
Mr Bruton wrote to Mr Barroso last Monday saying his assertion to the European Parliament that the crisis was home-grown did not tell the full story.
Mr Barroso’s spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday, saying the commission president would respond in due course.
“I would refer simply to what he said in the parliament that Europe is supporting Ireland and that Ireland is taking the necessary measures.”
In private, however, a senior commission source was dismissive of the argument made by Mr Bruton, himself a former EU ambassador to the US. “It’s a bit like the thief accusing the policeman. We should not have these discussions about blaming people.”
The source went on to say Mr Bruton was “turning the world upside down instead of looking at the real issues” in the argument he made.
“It’s not a solution to start finger-pointing. The commission is not in the blame game. This kind of thing is not really helpful in terms of what needs to be done to get out of the crisis.”
Mr Bruton told Mr Barroso his criticism of Irish failings was “fully justified” but urged him to tell “the whole story, not just one side of it”.
The commission had some responsibility for supervising the Irish economy and it had full information about the imbalances that were building in the economy, he said.
“What did the commission do at the time about the Irish housing bubble? What did the ECB do? Nothing very effective, it seems. Some reflection on that would be appropriate to accompany your fully justified criticism of Irish failings.”
He said Mr Barroso should acknowledge that non-Irish central banks must share some responsibility for the debacle and that non-Irish commercial banks were being spared losses because Irish taxpayers were bailing them out.
Last night a commission spokesman said the EU executive “repeatedly signalled downside fiscal and macroeconomic risks” related to Ireland’s property boom.
“Surveillance should have been broader and deeper, and above all more effective, in all institutions that were engaged in macroeconomic surveillance at the international and national level,” he said.
“On the fiscal front, which at the time was the commission surveillance responsibility, we repeatedly warned the Irish authorities of the fiscal and broad economic policy implications of the housing/construction bubble, starting as early as 2000.
“The lessons we learned from the current crisis, particularly from the experience of Ireland, led us to put forward our legislative proposal to enhance the surveillance carried out by the Commission, including harmful macroeconomic imbalances and a corrective arm related to this aspect of surveillance.
