FINE GAEL STANCE:FINE GAEL spokesman on finance Michael Noonan said it was impossible for his party to support the Government's fiscal plans because no one knew what the proposals entailed.
He said the Coalition had given no indication of what adjustment it intended making on budget day in December, or any details of its plans for the four-year budget strategy to be published next month.
“The appeals to the Opposition by Fianna Fáil to support the detail of their proposed fiscal correction would be comical if the country wasn’t in such dire straits, and if so many of our fellow citizens weren’t suffering from Fianna Fáil’s mistakes,” Mr Noonan said.
“It is currently impossible for Fine Gael to support the Government’s fiscal plans because nobody knows what these plans are.” Mr Noonan claimed the Government had “essentially been forced” by the European Commission to publish profiles of the next four budgets in November, but nothing had been proposed as yet.
“Surely no one is suggesting that Fine Gael should blandly agree to whatever the Government produces, whatever this may be?” He said Fine Gael welcomed the offer of briefings by a senior official on budget options. Cabinet decided on Tuesday that the Department of Finance’s secretary general, Kevin Cardiff, should write to the Opposition parties to offer information.
Earlier yesterday, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said she acknowledged Opposition parties had accepted the need to return the budget deficit to 3 per cent of economic output by 2014.
“It has been acknowledged by my colleague, the Minister for Finance . . . that all parties in the House have accepted the need to return to the deficit target of 3 per cent of GDP,” Ms Coughlan told the Dáil.
“The figure was agreed with the European Commission. We also agreed that this would have to be achieved by 2014 without adversely impacting on the capacity of this economy to grow. That has been acknowledged and I will acknowledge it again if it has not been heard.”
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore had said it was important that the Tánaiste would acknowledge in the House, on behalf of the Government, that the two main Opposition parties had accepted the target. Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said his party accepted the need to address the deficit but had “provided an argument for a very different course to be taken”.
Separately, Minister for Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe, speaking in London, said the national interest would be best served if the Opposition parties were to “become constructive in their approach”. There was no reason the Coalition would not take on board any “good practical suggestions”, he said.
“What is important is what impression we give abroad. How can we send out a positive signal that all aspects of political life in Ireland is absolutely ad idem in terms of the fiscal programme that we set out,” Mr O’Keeffe said.