Taoiseach trying to ‘whitewash the past’

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is trying to “whitewash the past” by claiming he took actions as finance minister that lessened the effect of the economic crash.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said Mr Cowen was piling “insult on injury” by attempting to “rewrite the history” of the past decade.

In a lengthy defence of his record last week, Mr Cowen insisted said he took a number of actions as finance minister to cool the property boom, and that the subsequent crash would have been “far worse” if it hadn’t been for such decisions.

He also insisted that all actions taken by him had been based on the best available advice at the time, and he placed the bulk of the blame elsewhere.

But Mr Gilmore, speaking at Labour’s annual James Connolly commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin, lambasted Mr Cowen’s defence.

“It is a shameful exercise from a Taoiseach who wants to whitewash the past and who has no plan for the future,” Mr Gilmore said.

“I think it’s the Bart Simpson defence. I think it is Brian Cowen saying he did nothing wrong, that nobody saw him doing anything wrong and that anyway nobody can prove anything,” he added.

“This is about Fianna Fáil trying to disavow their responsibility for the mess that they made of the Irish economy.”

Mr Gilmore’s criticism came as the Taoiseach again refused to apologise for any mistakes made that contributed to the crash.

In an interview on Today FM’s Sunday Supplement, Mr Cowen said while he accepted full responsibility for his decisions, saying sorry would instantly lead to claims he should step down.

Pushed on why he had such a problem apologising, he replied: “I don’t have any problem. I just think it’s a bit of a word game the media are engaged in, because the next question then is: ‘Oh, you’re disqualified from trying to sort out the problems.’”

Mr Cowen said the Government had taken tough but necessary decisions to address the problems, and criticised Labour for not supporting the bank guarantee scheme in September 2008.

In turn, Mr Gilmore accepted that a guarantee had been necessary for AIB and Bank of Ireland. But he said Labour had consistently opposed the “blanket nature” of the guarantee, in particular the decision to include Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide in it.

“Yes, I do accept that a guarantee was necessary for the main systemic banks, and I don’t think that has ever been questioned. The big question was why Anglo and Nationwide were included – they were not systemic banks. They were not banks that were engaged in the normal economic activity,” Mr Gilmore said.

“Anglo in particular was a piggy bank for property speculation. And no explanation has ever been provided as to why those two banks were included in the guarantee.”