Opposition tells Taoiseach: Change delayed is change denied

HAD Brian Cowen been the chief executive of a private company which failed as badly as his Government he would have been forced to resign, not rearrange his management team, according to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.

He said any private sector boss who saddled his company with the level of debt the country was now responsible for would be forced to consider his position.

Instead he said Mr Cowen had used his luck to make two minor replacements to his Cabinet and shift Tánaiste Mary Coughlan “downwards to the Department of Education”.

Mr Kenny said the reshuffle the Dáil voted on was a request by the Taoiseach to reward failures in his Cabinet.

“The Taoiseach is asking the House to give the same team more time to do more damage,” he said.

He said the exercise was about promoting “more of the same”.

Labour Party leaderEamon Gilmore echoed the theme. He used the analogy of the Government’s recently-introduced car scrappage scheme to suggest the Taoiseach was merely painting over the rust on a “clapped out model” dating back to 1997.

“This Government cannot lead. To lead you need to get people to row in behind you,” he said.

Mr Kenny said the Taoiseach lacked the bottle to make more sweeping changes but had he wanted to there was a scarcity of talent in the Government back benches who could take responsibility for a department.

He said Mr Cowen had “retreated from the challenge leadership”.

He added the familiar faces left on the front bench reflected poorly on the Taoiseach.

“It is an indictment of your judgment, of your courage and of yourvision,” he said.

Mr Gilmore said the Government had tried to sell the re-shuffle as major change.

He ridiculed the fact Mr Cowen used the word change more than 20 times in his reshuffle speech.

“This is not what change looks like. This is change delayed.

“Change delayed is change denied,” he said.

The junior coalition partner’s deal to secure promotions for Mary White and Ciarán Cuffe was also criticised.

Mr Kenny said the Green Party had got its “pound of flesh” with a second junior ministerial post.

Fine Gael deputy Michael Ring said he now felt sorry for Deputy Paul Gogarty, who was the only TD in the Green’s parliamentary party not to get a junior ministerial position during the current term.

He joked that Mr Gogarty had the right command of language to sell the Government’s message, after the Dublin mid-west TD was famously censured in the Dáil for swearing.