Cowen dismisses all-party government suggestion

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has dismissed suggestions of an all-party national government being put in place to tackle the financial crisis.

He also appears sceptical of a proposal by his coalition partner, Green leader John Gormley, to get a “national consensus” among parties on the four-year budgetary plan that will be published next month.

The Government will outline in that plan how much saving will be made in each of the next four budgets in order to reduce the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014.