Ex-minister Fahey breaks ranks on Bord Snip report

FORMER minister Frank Fahey has become the first Fianna Fáil TD to break ranks with the Government over proposals in the Bord Snip report, saying he would not accept cuts in social welfare payments.

The Galway West TD described the report as an attack on rural Ireland which should not be accepted and should be fought off.

The report proposes cuts in a number of grants schemes to farmers, including the REPS payment, and affects rural communities in other ways such as cuts to transport and the closing of small schools and Garda stations.

It also recommends the abolition of Údaras na Gaeltachta, something to which Mr Fahey said he is opposed because it will have a severely detrimental effect on certain areas in his constituency.

“We are not going to accept that rural Ireland should be stripped of so many programmes and schemes as proposed and we’re going to have to fight it,” Mr Fahey said in an interview with yesterday’s Connacht Tribune newspaper.

He said that while the Government has “no option but to make cuts of €4bn this year”, social welfare payments should be the last thing targeted.

“I wouldn’t accept the old age pension, unemployment and disability allowance being cut,” he said in the first signal of backbench dissent to the proposals to cut welfare payments by between 3% and 5% which Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is likely to push through in December’s budget.

Mr Fahey said there had to be “fundamental and radical reform” of the public services and the country was not getting the value for money or quality of service it should be getting.

Meanwhile, the Dublin South Central Fianna Fáil TD, Michael Mulcahy, called on the Government to implement the Bord Snip recommendations “without delay” and in advance of the budget.