Government forced into Dáil debate on IMF report

THE GOVERNMENT was yesterday forced to agree to a Dáil debate on the IMF and OECD reports on the economy next week after Opposition demands, threats of withdrawal of Dáil co-operation and a 10-minute adjournment.

The House will next Friday debate the OECD report and the IMF document which predicts a 13.5 per cent contraction in the economy, 15.5 per cent unemployment by the end of next year, and bank losses of up to €35 billion.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan had told the House to considerable heckling that “I would welcome a debate on these reports, especially given the warm endorsement of current Government policy in the IMF report”.

However, when he said he was not in a position to allocate Government time to the debate, there was persistent intervention and Opposition threats to withdraw Dáil co-operation.

Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton demanded a debate and said what was “really worrying about the IMF report is the very significant number of pitfalls it identifies in the Government’s strategy on banking”.

Mr Bruton added that “there are those who don’t know and those who don’t know that they don’t know. Now I think people who don’t know, they look for advice. But people who don’t know that they don’t know, what do they do? They push ahead and brook no opposition.”

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said: “I can’t imagine a minister for finance in any other country who, having received such a damning report on the economic and financial performance of a government of which he has been part for the past 12 years, would say he welcomed it, that it had nothing to do with him that he really was not part of the government at all.”

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said it was no surprise Mr Lenihan welcomed the reports “because the interpretation he quite rightly might put on them is that they exonerate him in his current role as Minister and lay the blame quite firmly and squarely on the former minister for finance, the current Taoiseach”. He said however that “the fact is there is collective responsibility”.

Mr Lenihan said a debate was a matter for the party whips, but “clearly members of the Opposition have to read the report before we can have a debate on it”. He insisted that the “IMF states that the Government’s policies are the right ones” and that it had described the National Asset Management Agency as “pivotal to the orderly restructuring of the financial sector and the limiting of long-term damage to the economy”.

But Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton highlighted the IMF’s comment that the “economic situation here will be an episode of the most severe economic distress since the second World War”.

Mr Lenihan said that if the Opposition was “willing to facilitate some Government business . . we will be quite happy to facilitate them with a debate on the IMF report”.

Labour justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte warned “we will not co-operate with business for the rest of this session unless the Government makes a commitment that the IMF and the OECD commentaries will be debated”.