Green TD urges voters to punish FF politicians who caused crisis

GREEN TD Paul Gogarty appeared to invite electoral catastrophe on Fianna Fáil yesterday, despite the fact the two parties are in coalition.

Speaking in the Dáil, he said he hoped the electorate would tell the politicians responsible for the economic crisis “where to go”.

Mr Gogarty was speaking during a debate on the Government’s €2 billion package of spending cuts announced earlier this week.

He said there was understandable anger among the public that those who had caused the crisis — “the fat cats, the bankers, the developers and the political decision-makers” — hadn’t taken their fair share of the burden.

But the trouble was that “those who messed us up no longer have the money so we all have to pay for their greed and — let’s be honest — to a lesser extent, our own greed as a nation”.

“I hope that those who caused this situation get their comeuppance. I hope that history and the electorate will judge those who made the political decisions that caused our decline to be worse than the global norm,” he said.

“I for one will welcome the day when those who showed more favour to the political donors and vested interests than to the citizens in their care are told, in no uncertain terms, where to go.”

However, he added now was not the time for “apportioning blame” because stability was required.

“There is a job to be done in the national interest,” he said in a clear signal that the Greens would continue to present a united front in government.

Contacted by this paper about the remarks, Mr Gogarty admitted he had been talking mainly, but not exclusively, about Fianna Fáil.

“Without specifically naming individuals, because we’re talking about a culture here that spreads into several different parties, now is not the time to start spreading the blame, which is why the Greens are taking the more difficult option of taking the blame for something we had nothing to do with in order to show the unity required to keep the country on balance,” he said.

A spokesman for the Greens said: “Paul is speaking in a personal capacity. All the mainstream parties with the exception of the Green Party have accepted funding from the banks. His comments relate to all political parties with the exception of the Greens.”