Martin: We’re sorry for errors... but bank guarantee was right

The bank guarantee was not included in the Fianna Fáil “mistakes” that leader Micheál Martin apologised for in his ard fheis speech, he clarified yesterday.

During his address to delegates in the RDS on Saturday night, Mr Martin said the party should have acted differently in Government. “We made mistakes. We got things wrong. And we are sorry for that,” he said to a standing ovation from most members.

Former taoiseach Brian Cowen, former tánaiste Mary Coughlan and other members of the previous administration remained seated.

In his first ard fheis speech as leader, he said there should be “no equivocation, no half apology. Just the plain, unvarnished truth”.

Mr Martin said the people were right to hold Fianna Fáil to account in last year’s general election: “People were angry and they showed it, delivering an historic defeat for use.

“We fully acknowledge the scale of that defeat. That is why we must now work for a deep and real renewal of both our party and of politics as a whole.”

Fine Gael welcomed the apology and the “acknowledgment of Fianna Fáil’s role in Ireland’s present economic problems”.

It said it hopes Mr Martin “will keep his promise to provide constructive opposition” and “help get this country out of the crisis caused by a government of which he was a minister”.

Asked on RTÉ radio yesterday what he was sorry for, Mr Martin said: “The economic policies, the pro-cyclical policies in the good times and spending too much in terms of public expenditure and reducing the tax take too much.”

He said the party had also relied too heavily on “transient taxes”, which were buoyed up because of the construction boom. “This made us particularly vulnerable when the world shock came and hit us and our defences were not strong enough to counteract that.”

He also blamed the independent regulatory system and the lack of oversight.

But he said “the jury is still out” on the bank guarantee introduced by the cabinet, of which he was a member, in September 2008.

He said analysis, including from the Central Bank governor, would suggest that “if the bank guarantee wasn’t brought in there would be an immediate catastrophic effect on the economy”.

In his ard fheis speech, Mr Martin reaffirmed Fianna Fáil’s position as a pro-EU party, saying it would be “true to our tradition” by supporting the fiscal compact treaty in the forthcoming referendum.

Speaking on The Week in Politics last night, he said “there will be consequences” if Éamon Ó Cuiv campaigns against the treaty. “We can’t have a situation where the parliamentary party has agreed a particular action and people go off and do something differently.”

Asked whether he felt Mr Ó Cuív wanted his job as leader, Mr Martin said: “I don’t think he does. And he certainly hasn’t made that position to me at all.”