Opposition slams Cowen for 'catastrophic' financial failings

Opposition parties tonight rounded on Taoiseach Brian Cowen over the series of "catastrophic" actions that brought the country to its knees.

The former finance minister was accused of overseeing spectacular failings that ordinary taxpayers have been left to pay for as two damning reports on Ireland’s banking crisis were released.

Labour’s Joan Burton said never before in the history of the State had the policies of a Government been subject of such excoriating criticism.

She said Mr Cowen can not escape how during his tenure in finance, he stoked the building boom and allowed tax measures to remain in place which crippled the country economically or socially.

“As a result, the cost of doing business in Ireland rocketed and we lost out heavily in the export of goods and services,” said Ms Burton, deputy party leader and finance spokesperson.

“The damage done then still casts a long shadow and will take a long time to repair.”

Richard Bruton, Fine Gael finance spokesman, said the report made clear budgetary failure was central to the collapse.

“Brian Cowen and the banking and regulatory systems he oversaw were guilty of spectacular and catastrophic failures of economic management with ordinary taxpayers left to pay the price for this failure,” he said.

“The reports show that Ireland was not pursuing sustainable economic policies that were blown off course by an international financial tsunami - far from it: Ireland’s economic leaders were guilty of catastrophic policy errors.

“The reality is that ordinary people have lost their jobs, have seen good businesses go under, have seen their families wracked in debt and consumed by worry,” he added.

Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghin O Caolain described the documents as an indictment of Government policy, of Mr Cowen’s role as finance minister and on the regulator, rating agencies and bankers.

“These are reports of fraud, burglary and mugging of the Irish people by a gang of corporate criminals aided by this government. People need to be held to account,” he said.

“The Government and all those bankers and others who caused this crisis must go.”

Meanwhile IBOA, The Finance Union – which represents more than 22,000 workers in the financial services sector – revealed its members were left counting the cost when the property bubble burst.

Larry Broderick, general secretary, said an inadequate and poorly applied regulatory regime, a Government tax framework which inflated the property bubble and a self-indulgent banking leadership created a vicious circle which spiralled out of control.

“Those who indulged in this irresponsible behaviour have emerged relatively unscathed – availing of generous golden parachutes and substantial nest eggs to comfort them in retirement,” he said.

“Meanwhile the rank-and-file staff in the financial services sector – who on a number of occasions in the last decade warned of the dangers of the prevailing culture in the industry – are counting the cost of their senior management’s’ calamitous lack of judgment as significant job reductions are prescribed as part of the price of rescuing these institutions.”