THE COST of the beef tribunal could turn out to be as much as £100 million and it could represent the difference between whether or not this State qualified for membership of European Monetary Union, Mr Michael O'Kennedy (FF) claimed.
The Tanaiste had insisted on the need for the tribunal, Mr O'Kennedy said in a debate on EMU, but when Mr Spring was called before it, he claimed privilege and argued that he should not have to disclose his sources.
Mr O'Kennedy said the same Tanaiste had earlier this week told the Dail that the "chancers" in Fianna Fail could not be trusted with the task of steering this country into monetary union. "I deeply resent this. I say to the Minister representing the Government negotiating the penultimate stages of EMU that he should formally withdraw the allegations for the sake of the Irish people and our credibility in Europe.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, said the aim was that the forthcoming Dublin European Council would reaffirm the January 1st, 1999, commencement date for EMU and so further reinforce the message - that the progress to EMU was irreversible. Mr Quinn said this State's performance on the convergence criteria was excellent and the Government was determined to maintain that record.
On preparations for the EMU he said we needed to make sure we continued to meet the Maastricht criteria. In particular, we must go on keeping the general government deficit comfortably below 3 per cent of GDP and ensuring that the debt ratio keeps falling. We were already keeping inflation low but there was no room for complacency. The inflation criterion in the Treaty was a relative one.
"Low deficits, moderate wage increases in the successor to the PCW and increased competition throughout our economy will all help us to do so. This will also, of course, help us to meet the criterion for exchange rate stability and also that for the long term interest rate."
Mr Quinn said we also needed to improve as much as possible the working of the economy in terms of competitiveness and efficiency. This meant not just the Government employers and employees also needed to look at every aspect of their operation to see how they could be improved. Continuous improvement needed to be at the top of everyone's agenda.
An aspect of the economy that would become even more important as we moved towards EMU was to improve flexibility throughout the system. In EMU member states would have to respond to shocks by means other than adjustments of exchange rates.