FF to blame for high consumer prices, says FitzGerald

FIANNA FÁIL’S mishandling of budgets at the turn of the Millennium has driven up consumer prices, former Taoiseach Garrett FitzGerald said yesterday.

The former Fine Gael leader, who led two governments in the 1980s, claimed former Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy’s management of the economy around 2000 boosted the cost of goods and services.

Mr McCreevy, who left the Cabinet as Finance Minister in 2004 to became the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner, delivered seven budgets after coming to office in 1997.