TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has insisted that the Government learned only on the morning of last Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting that the February exchequer returns would show a disquieting €2 billion shortfall for the first two months of the year.
The Opposition parties said they were disturbed and astonished at the Taoiseach’s admission and said it was another sign of the Government’s complacency.
Mr Cowen said the Government did not receive updates on a weekly basis and that accurate figures were not available to it until the end of each month.
However, the Taoiseach also denied the suggestion that the Government was caught on the back foot by the dramatic deterioration in the public finances during February.
“I don’t think we were caught by surprise,” he said. “This is an international phenomenon and [an] international recession is taking place. The level of revenue that the economy is generating is less than expected, even though we had budgeted for a decrease this year.
“So as this situation develops, you have to respond appropriately. At the end of the January figures, we came forward with €2 billion savings. The end of February figures indicate that we’re going to have to do even more.”
Mr Cowen was speaking to reporters on his way in to address a Small Firms’ Association event in Dublin, where he said the Government faced difficult decisions when framing its emergency budget.
Asked about the round of briefings to Opposition parties and the social partners, he said: “I think all of us have to recognise that the country is facing a huge challenge. I think the briefings that are being given to the social partners and the political partners are designed to make sure that everybody is in command of the facts, and the facts, however unpalatable, have to be confronted.”
Opposition parties expressed surprise at his comments that the Cabinet knew the full extent of the shortfall only on Tuesday.
Fine Gael deputy leader and Finance spokesman Richard Bruton said it was disturbing to discover that the Taoiseach only became aware of the situation hours before the Cabinet meeting.
“It is intolerable that neither the Minister for Finance or the Taoiseach were not monitoring the trends in regard to the exchequer figures, given the grave state of the nation’s finances at present.
“This mindset, characterised by inertia, in no way gives people confidence that those with their hands on the economic tiller are in any way exerting control over the direction the country needs to take towards recovery,” Mr Bruton said.
Labour deputy leader Joan Burton expressed astonishment at the disclosure. She said the “credit controller of a small company would have kept, and would have looked for, weekly reports on the revenue situation”.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan said it was shocking to learn that the Taoiseach was not monitoring the State’s finances on a week-to-week basis.