Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan yesterday said he hoped his invitation to speak at Béal na mBláth would be seen as a further act of “historical reconciliation” between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Speaking at the annual Michael Collins commemoration in west Cork, Mr Lenihan said it was a great honour to be the first Fianna Fáil minister to deliver the ceremony’s oration.
“It is true that over time the painful divisions from which emerged the two largest political parties in the State have more or less entirely healed . . .” he said.
“Nonetheless, keen competition between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael remains – as I am very aware each time I stand up in the Dáil. But the power of symbolism cannot be denied, all the more so as we move towards the centenaries of the Easter Rising and all that followed.
“If today’s commemoration can be seen as a further public act of historical reconciliation, at one of Irish history’s sacred places, then I will be proud to have played my part.”
Mr Lenihan paid tribute to Michael Collins’s record as a man of “energy and action” who also possessed an extraordinary talent for organisation.
“Here was a man at constant risk of arrest and death, running a ruthless guerilla war and masterminding the highly efficient intelligence system which secured its success,” Mr Lenihan said. “Yet he still had the time and ability to build the foundations of a system of finance control. Such a system was essential to the running of a state.”
Mr Lenihan acknowledged that Fine Gael has been the custodian of the memory of Michael Collins, including at a time when some in Fianna Fáil were “unwilling to recognise his importance”. However, he recalled that his paternal grandfather Paddy Lenihan greatly admired Collins and took the pro-Treaty side in 1922.
Years after the Civil War, after a decade as a civil servant, his grandfather went on to join Fianna Fáil, attracted by Seán Lemass, who “shared many of the qualities he admired in Collins: the talent for organisation, great energy and a modernising tendency”.
While he said there was no substantive connection between the economic and financial position we confront today and the challenges faced by Collins, Mr Lenihan said he drew comfort from the resilience of the country in dealing with past adversity.
“That is why I am convinced we have the ability to work through and to overcome our present difficulties, great though the scale of the challenges may be, and devastating though the effects of the crisis have been on the lives of so many of our citizens.” Mr Lenihan said that resolving the current economic and financial crisis was the “key challenge for this generation”.
“Whatever our disagreements, I believe we can and must all work together to build a viable economy which can sustain jobs for all our people.”
The key to national recovery, he said, lay in improving competitiveness; restoring sustainable public finances; and ensuring credit is available for businesses and households.
Mr Lenihan said he was committed to delivering budgets for 2011 and 2012 which continue to bring expenditure and revenues towards a sustainable balance.
“This inevitably means the next budgets will continue to require strict control of expenditure. What I can promise is that as Minister, I will try to ensure the burden is borne by those who can best afford it.”
He acknowledged and understood, he said, the “continuing public incomprehension and anger” at the scale of funding needed to rescue the banking sector – in particular to Anglo Irish Bank.“Fury is quite a reasonable response to the incredible recklessness and incompetence which fuelled the banking mania of the last Celtic Tiger. Like others, I hope that anyone who broke the law will face its full rigours,” he said.
The Government, however, had made the difficult decision to support the banks based on the expert advice available to it at home, in the EU and IMF.
While the country had been severely shaken, he insisted that the economy was “beginning to heal”, with exports growing and consumer spending moving off its lows of late last year.
While the current crisis was deep and severe, he said the State had surmounted similar difficulties in the past. In meeting these challenges, the Irish people had shown their courage and determination, just as Collins and his colleagues did in the establishment of the State.
He concluded: “The spirit of Collins is the spirit of the nation, and it must continue to inspire everyone in public life, irrespective of party or tradition.