Simon Coveney’s brother questions how so many people were 'left behind'

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney’s businessman brother has publicly questioned how so many people have been “left behind” in what he described as the “unprecedented economic recovery” of recent years.

While hailing the achievements of the Government in turning around the economy, Greencore CEO Patrick Coveney said the “great mystery” of the recovery is that “no-one feels it”.

At a business conference in Cork, Mr Coveney questioned the success of the Government in ensuring the benefits of the economic recovery were evenly felt across all sectors of society.

Mr Coveney described the revival in the country’s economic fortunes as “unprecedented”. But he said the rising tide hasn’t lifted everyone and “loads of people have been left behind”.

He was one of a number of business leaders addressing the University College Cork Business Conference at the Kingsley Hotel in Cork.

Tackling the uneven distribution of our hard-earned economic rewards will be one of the most important challenges of the next government, Mr Coveney added.

Both the tenor and the timing of Mr Coveney’s criticisms of the failure of the recovery to spread throughout society will increase the pressure on Fine Gael, which has endured a rocky start to its election campaign.

Last night, several Fine Gael ministers voiced their annoyance and frustration at the confusion over the party’s spending plans during the lifetime of the next government.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan scrambled yesterday to try and contain the growing furore over Fine Gael’s estimated €12bn of extra spending, which is considerably higher than the €3.2bn estimated by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.

Mr Noonan was forced onto the back foot, admitting that Fine Gael’s projections did not take account of inflation, rises in welfare and pension payments, or a new public sector pay deal.

He insisted governments did not take account of these changes when projecting spending plans or the “fiscal space” and that it was at budget time that these figures were included.

Mr Noonan insisted that there was no “great divergence” between his figures and those proposed by IFAC chairman John McHale.

“He’s giving net figures on certain assumptions which the government of the day might not make. But his figures are very similar to ours when you net it out,” Mr Noonan said.

“There isn’t a divergence between the gross and the net figures, it is just that the figures are built on different assumptions.”

However, one leading economist was critical of the figures being proposed by the political parties.

University of Limerick lecturer Stephen Kinsella said the estimated figures are based on hypothetical assumptions and the gravest of doubt must be put on them.

And, there was further embarrassment in store for the Department of Finance, Fine Gael, and Fianna Fáil after it emerged they had overestimated the fiscal space by €2bn. This overestimation was as a result of a double counting.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath ruled out a deal with Fine Gael, insisting he and his party “want Enda Kenny gone”.

He accused Mr Kenny and Fine Gael of acting like the government in North Korea by strictly limiting the questions allowed to be put to Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when the Taoiseach of the day conducts his first press conference with a limit of two questions,” he said.