Lenihan keen to implement Bord Snip measures

FINANCE Minister Brian Lenihan has put his cabinet colleagues on alert that he does not want to wait until December’s budget to implement the recommendations of Bord Snip Nua.

And he said each minister will not be asked what measures in Professor Colm McCarthy’s are avoidable but instead fight to justify any they want to escape the axe.

“I can assure that every issue will be taken to each department and there will be an onus on each department to establish why we should not implement the McCarthy report,” he said.

Speaking at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, he also said he will not increase the overall burden of taxation in December. This means his €4bn target for 2010 will come entirely from cuts.

There were calls to bring forward parts of the Bord Snip Nua report which were non-budgetary.

Former departmental general secretary Brendan Touhy said any successful business would not wait to act while it is forced to borrow €400m a week just to keep running.

Mr Lenihan said he believed if there was anything which could be cut in the remaining months of 2009 he saw no problem in doing so, apparently contradicting views on other sides of the cabinet table, including Taoiseach Brian Cowen. However, Mr Lenihan conceded in many areas departments had already spent the majority of their budgets because of the time of year.

“Of course if there are issues that can be progressed this year they will be progressed this year. But remember many of the recommendations are expressly predicated on action in 2010 and 2011,” he said.

The summer school also heard criticism of departments trying to undermine the McCarthy report with their own value for money assessments.

Mr Lenihan also said a review of capital spending in his department would continue and look at every area of spending not addressed by Bord Snip Nua. However, he said the Government still believed investment in infrastructure was the best way to stimulate the economy and the National Development Plan would only be deferred — not cancelled.

Speaking on the same panel as Mr Lenihan in Glenties new Fine Gael deputy George Lee said he could not support the early implementation of Bord Snip Nua.

He said while canvassing he had met people who would find it impossible to take a further hit and anybody who believed they could was not in touch with reality.

Afterwards Mr Lenihan launched an aggressive defence against accusations by Mr Lee that the Government had built its policy as if the property based tax bonanza would last forever.

Mr Lee said the Government was not imagainative enough focusing on spending without stimulus.

"Go out and come up with something that will stimulate and don't brain wash us... [that] if you cut back and if you raise taxes you will stimulate the economy," Mr Lee said.

Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore also addressed the session. He said Government policy had left the country in the sorry state it was in and it was time for a complete rethink in our political priorities.

He also demanded a new national development plan reflecting the changed environment.

Mr Gilmore said the Government cannot simply go after civil servants in response to "very destructive and bally ragging of public servants that has gone on too long."

All three speakers were given a rousing reception from the audience, some of whom could not find space inside the hall given the level of interest in the event.