FF TDs accused of delaying no confidence vote

Fianna Fáil TDs were tonight accused of casting doubts over the Taoiseach's leadership by delaying a no confidence vote over damning assessments of his big spending budgets ahead of Ireland's economic nosedive.

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny said Brian Cowen's party colleagues were running scared of a Dáil debate and had left a question hanging over his future.

Mr Kenny claimed reports by international bank experts lay the blame for the credit crunch, banking collapse and multi-billion budget deficit firmly at the Government's door.

"In particular, it is clear now that Brian Cowen was the chief architect of the catastrophic failures of policy that led directly to our current economic crisis," the Mayo TD said.

"He misled the Irish public repeatedly as to the origins of the crisis and his actions in delivering inappropriate budgets year after year and his inaction in driving a tougher regulatory regime for our financial sector are all central to our home made recession."

The Government will table a motion of confidence in Taoiseach Brian Cowen next Tuesday after former International Monetary Fund (IMF) experts Klaus Regling and Max Watson delivered a major blow to the Taoiseach.

In a second damning report, Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan also blamed reckless banking chiefs and the Financial Regulator for being afraid to "spoil the party".

Mr Kenny criticised the attitude of Government over the last decade claiming a "socio-political context was generated by the Government within the spires of the Galway tent and that socio-political context was this - that if you said anything, anything about the way the country was moving... you were either guilty of national sabotage our told to go and commit suicide".

He later added: "In the past 18 months, we have seen changes in the top in the Central Bank, in the Financial Regulator and in the main banks.

"The only place we have had no change is in this Government. The people who led us into this mess cannot and will not be the ones to get us out of it."

The bankers will discuss their findings at the Oireachtas Finance Committee tomorrow morning in Leinster House.

Sinn Féin's Aengus O Snodaigh said the most decent thing Mr Cowen and his colleagues could do is hold up their heads, hang their heads in shame and walk out of Government.

The TD demanded the people of Ireland be given the opportunity to voice their opinion and vote in a general election.

"Brian Cowen has not fully accepted responsibility for his mistakes in relation to the economic crisis in Ireland, and the government's proposal to put a motion of confidence in him to the Dáil next week underlines this," he said.

The Taoiseach refused to shoulder all the blame and insisted many mistakes made were based on fundamentally flawed projections from the Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the OECD.

Published simultaneously 10 days after being handed to the Government, the two reports will kick-start an official inquiry into the banking crisis to be set up by the end of the month.