‘Taxpayers being asked to sign a blank cheque’

BRIAN Lenihan is taking the biggest risk in history with the state’s financial future, the opposition last night warned.

Fine Gael said the Government had been “panicked” into an ill thought-out initiative which amounted to taxpayers writing “an enormous blank cheque” while ministers crossed their fingers and hoped for the best.

The party’s finance spokesperson Richard Bruton attacked the vagueness of the proposals which he said was alarming.