Cowen economical with answers under FG grilling

WHAT is it about Fine Gael and party occasions? First, there was the ard fheis disaster in 1991 when a comic sketch involving Twink famously bombed.

Then there was the party’s Christmas bash in 2002 which featured a band singing rebel songs.

And then, just last week, the party held its pre-Dáil parliamentary party meeting in Clare.

One of the guest speakers was broadcaster and sports pundit George Hook, who told them in no uncertain terms that they were losers for coming second in the general election.

If ever there was a gift to Fianna Fáil, this was it. Unsurprising, then, that within hours of the Dáil resuming, somebody had wheeled out the quote.

Asked about FG’s decision to withdraw co-operation from a routine voting arrangement, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern responded: “I can put it no better than George Hook. What did he call them? Losers.”

FG TD Simon Coveney did his best to respond, describing Ahern as “small-minded and arrogant”. But FG might have been better not taking the bait. This was small-minded stuff on both sides, a petty argument about a voting arrangement that will be forgotten about next week.

What government and opposition should have been arguing about, of course, was the economy and the particularly fragile state of it.

And there was some of that, but in truth, it was surprisingly low-key, considering the public’s faith in the economy is sinking faster than a Wall Street bank.

FG leader Enda Kenny and his Labour counterpart, Eamon Gilmore, got their first opportunity in almost three months to grill Taoiseach Brian Cowen about economic matters.

Mr Kenny recited the statistics — unemployment up by 42%, a €5bn tax shortfall, the cost of living up 50%, the stock market down by 45% and so on — and called on Mr Cowen to agree to a proper debate on the economy.

But Mr Cowen simply shrugged it all off, insisting that the Government was managing the issue by bringing forward the budget to October 14.

Mr Kenny then accused the Taoiseach of “gross political cowardice” in avoiding the debate, but Mr Cowen refused to take the bait, kept his temper in check and issued another bland answer.

Mr Gilmore went next, and pointed out that the country was haemorrhaging jobs on the Taoiseach’s watch, at a rate of roughly 300 a day. When he asked Mr Cowen what the Government was doing to help the unemployed, the Taoiseach fell into the trap of defending Fás, the state agency under investigation over its spending practices.

But that was about it, and then the Taoiseach was off to New York for a UN conference, safe in the knowledge he had escaped the first week of the Dáil term with barely a mark on him.

But the economic problems won’t be over in a week. The opposition leaders can be content there will be plenty of opportunities to inflict some damage yet.