Taoiseach: Kenny ‘not able’ to assess evidence

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has launched another attack on Enda Kenny after the Fine Gael leader criticised the Government’s banking and employment strategies.

In 2008, when defending the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Mr Cowen told Mr Kenny he was “neither qualified nor able” to assess the evidence being heard at the Mahon Tribunal.

In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Cowen adopted a similar tactic as he suggested Mr Kenny was “even more foolish” than the Taoiseach had previously believed.

Defending the Government’s banking strategy, Mr Cowen told Mr Kenny that Fine Gael’s alternative proposals would have resulted in a €65 billion bill to the State. “Had Anglo Irish Bank not been recapitalised last year, it would have lost its banking licence and there would have been a call on the State guarantee,” Mr Cowen said. “We would have been required to immediately repay €65bn in funding to the European Central Bank, national central banks and other providers of funds.

“If that’s your policy, you’re even more foolish than I thought you were.”

But Mr Kenny said he would not descend to “personal invective”, claiming the Taoiseach was stuck in a “straitjacket of tribal Fianna Fáilism” and unable to see that the Opposition might have constructive ideas towards tackling the bank crisis and creating jobs.

“The people on the street are suffering in enraged silence at the carry-on and incompetence of the Government and what has happened here,” Mr Kenny added, naming a long list of recent job losses. “What is going up should be going down. Bank interest rates, unemployment and house repossessions are rising, while loan approvals, business investment and tax receipts are still going down.”

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the latest Live Register figures meant that an average of 340 people a day had lost their job since Mr Cowen took office.

Referring to the Taoiseach’s claim that the unemployment situation was “stabilising”, Mr Gilmore retorted: “There is no stability in being unemployed, especially when people cannot get a social welfare payment or a reply from the social welfare office when making an inquiry about a claim.”

Mr Gilmore said the Live Register figures did not include people who had emigrated in search of work, and called on the Taoiseach to appoint a dedicated employment minister in the forthcoming reshuffle.

Mr Cowen insisted that the Government had a jobs plan, saying: “This country has an employment strategy and it is based on the fact that we must first bring order to our public finances, something that is glazed over by the Opposition.”