Joan Burton rejects claim Labour has ‘rolled over’ for Fine Gael

Tánaiste Joan Burton has rejected claims by Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams that the Labour party has "rolled over" in the coalition bed on all issues.

She also claimed Fine Gael was trying to “shrink” the State through cuts in public spending.

Ms Burton said a balance had to be struck in serving the public’s interests through public investment or through a much smaller State sought by “frankly, people who would like to shrink the State”.

She was speaking to reporters in advance of her address to a party symposium on James Connolly as part of Labour's 1916 commemoration programme.

Mr Adams had dismissed comments the Tánaiste was to make at the symposium that the general election battle would be a battle of ideas between Fine Gael and Labour rather than one between Government and Opposition.

He said this was “laughable” because the Tánaiste “has been in bed with Fine Gael for the past five years and she’s rolled over on every single principle that Labour enunciated in the campaign and that Labour was elected to deliver on.”

But dismissing Mr Adams comments Ms Burton retaliated: “Some of Gerry’s imagery is a bit crude but probably less crude than a lot of the actions he’s been responsible for in his long period of three decades of political leadership”.

“Sinn Féin really seeks to devour the Labour party and indeed the Labour movement because they are a party with a historic mission as they see it to dominate and to control,” she said.

Ms Burton said her party was not willing to be dominated by Sinn Féin and what they had stood for.

“We’re investing, we’re building schools, we’re reforming the social welfare system. This week alone has seen the return of the Christmas bonus.”

She added that “we’ve been able to create 140,000 jobs. He may feel those achievements merit little coming from the particular background and political structure he comes from, but for ordinary people it means an awful lot.”

In her speech claiming the election would be a battle of ideas between Fine Gael and Labour she also asked if the electorate would vote for the stability the Government had provided or for the “instability of the Opposition”.

And that battle had been going on between Fine Gael and Labour for the past five years, she said.

Labour would seek a split in the next five years of 70 per cent for investment in services and 30 per cent for tax reductions.

She said Fine Gael wanted to abolish the USC for everyone but Labour would retain it for the portion of any income over €70,000.

Asked if her speech was an attempt to distance Labour from Fine Gael and win back more left wing supporters, Ms Burton said only the Labour party “has a brought a combination of an economic and social analysis in how we move Ireland from to the better place that we know it can be”.

The electorate’s choice over the past 30 years had been for coalition government and in making that choice they wanted balance.

They had to have a balance between the “interests of people at work and families and business and doing that through public investment, and frankly people who would like to shrink the State and doing that through a much smaller State”.

Asked if she was saying Fine Gael wanted to shrink the State, she said centre right ideas right across the world suggested that the private sector can do everything.

“Now I just don’t believe that the private sector can to everything... We’re absolutely in favour of a mixed economy but the public arena and the public endowment and investment is absolutely critical

“If you take arts and culture you have private philanthropists and that’s great but you actually need a public endowment to support the kind of cultural and artistic activity that a state like Ireland needs. It’s a mix of the two.”