Incoming administration not bound by plan, says FG leader

REACTION:FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny said he had received confirmation from the European Commission that any incoming government would not be bound by the proposals in the four-year budgetary plan.

Reacting to the publication of the plan yesterday, Mr Kenny complained that the “main feature” of the document was that it did not deal with what it was supposed to deal with. It lacked details of budgetary profiles for the next four years, he said.

“We’ve been talking to the European Commission and I want to make it perfectly clear that any incoming government is not bound by any individual policy decision in this document,” Mr Kenny said.

“The commission has made it perfectly clear that in the event of the people voting for a change of government early in the new year that it would be possible for a new government to negotiate, discuss and change any individual policy position that is in this document.”

Mr Kenny said his party would publish its own budgetary strategy next week.

Fine Gael’s spokesman on finance Michael Noonan described the plan as “very disappointing” and “quite temporary in nature”.

Mr Noonan said he had gone through the document to see what it said about the restructuring of banks, and found that it said nothing, which he found incredible.

The top-line figures in the plan would change once banking strategies were agreed with the IMF and EU, yet the plan is “silent on banking”.

He reiterated that Fine Gael was committed to the same targets as the Government on adjustments and the deficit, which they had been told were non-negotiable.

Party spokesman on enterprise Richard Bruton said the section in the plan on government reform was “singularly unambitious” and he called for more reduction in public service numbers.

Fine Gael spokesman on communications Leo Varadkar said the party was “particularly aggrieved” at the proposal to reduce the minimum wage when there were no similar proposals affecting salaries of higher earners. He also complained that there was “pretty much no stimulation plan”.

Labour Party spokeswoman on finance Joan Burton said the plan indicated there would be a “hard landing” for PAYE workers.

Ms Burton called on the Government to clarify the status of the financial programme and said it was not clear if the document represented the Coalition’s opening position as it went into talks with the IMF.

Reacting to the proposed reduction to the minimum wage, Ms Burton said: “It’s difficult to know what the reduction in minimum wage is here for. It’s a bit of an ideological fetish.” She said the number of people on it was relatively small.

Ms Burton said the economy would be deflated by frontloading €6 billion in spending cuts and tax increases in this year’s budget. “No economy I know in the world deflated its way back to growth,” she added.

The big problem with the plan was the lack of any real strategy for growth, she said. Savings had to be found in the Croke Park process, “as soon as possible”.

Ms Burton repeated Labour’s opposition to an adjustment of €6 billion in the forthcoming budget.

Sinn Féin’s leader in the Dáil, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, described the plan as “savage”.

Mr Ó Caoláin called on other Opposition parties to stand with Sinn Féin to vote against the budget. He said it was imperative that Opposition parties operated collectively to oppose what he described as “this lunacy”.

It was unacceptable that a Government with its time being measured “in weeks” was bringing in the plan, he said.

“This is a plan for national recession rather than national recovery.”