Enda stands by ‘mad borrowing’ claim

By Juno McEnroe, Caroline O’Doherty and Jimmy Woulfe

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Enda Kenny stood over his claim that Irish people blew the boom by going on a mad borrowing spree as ministers scrambled to defend his comments.

Last night the Taoiseach also seemed to shift the blame for the collapse of the Celtic Tiger onto developers rather than the Irish people, whom he originally claimed had gone "mad with borrowing".

Mr Kenny’s gaffe at the World Economic Forum in Davos, drew sharp criticism, with many pointing to the contrasting words in Mr Kenny’s pre-budget address last month, when he told people the economic crash was not their fault. Speaking last night at the close of his visit to the Swiss forum, he said: "When I was at home I made it perfectly clear in my state of the nation address to the people that it was not the people’s fault."

Mr Kenny said he explained what had happened in Ireland at Davos, adding: "We had very poor regulation; we had incompetent government; we had a system with a banking regime that paid big bonuses on volume lending which meant that developers, in the sense of buying and proposing schemes that could never be paid for by people, brought our country over the edge. And I set that in context very clearly."

However, as the Opposition again called on Mr Kenny to apologise to the Irish people, five ministers were forced to defend the Taoiseach’s earlier claim.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said: "I think we all know that the moral flaw at the heart of the crisis was greed. That’s not to say everybody was greedy; they weren’t. We used to blame partition for all of our problems after independence and now people are trying to blame Europe and outside bodies for all our problems and I think we need to be honest with ourselves and accept that some of the causes of the crisis are homegrown. That’s not to say that everyone is responsible."

Environment Minister Phil Hogan said those analysing Mr Kenny’s comments should "get a grip of themselves".

Health Minister James Reilly said: "People had money shoved at them. I could give you several anecdotal accounts of individuals I know who had phone calls from their bank managers offering loans that they weren’t the least bit interested in and giving all sorts of ideas about how they might spend it."

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said: "The Taoiseach has made clear time and again that ordinary people are not to blame... it was developers, bankers, it was regulators that drove this crash."

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said: "He was speaking to a different audience. It was the same message. This was driven by greed and reckless lending."

Fr Seán Healy of Social Justice Ireland has said the comments were a "lopsided" analysis of the economic crash and Fianna Fáil’s Niall Collins accused Mr Kenny of betraying the people.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, January 28, 2012