Varadkar: Austerity in Ireland 'not a policy choice'

The Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has defended the Government’s programme for recovery in the wake of comments made by the Social Protection Minister Joan Burton.

Ms Burton placed herself at odds with Government policy when she told a conference in Dublin yesterday that the country has reached the limits of austerity.

She said electorates in advanced societies had a limit beyond which they were not prepared to accept austerity and that we have now reached a tipping point.

But Minister Varadkar said the Coalition parties had no choice when they entered government.

He said: "I think it was a very good speech and she (Joan Burton) made a lot of sense and I agree with a lot of what she said.

"But I think what she would also say is that austerity in Ireland is not a policy choice. Ireland ran out of money in 2008, nobody would lend us money and as a result of that we're in a programme which is largely agreed with the Troika and we have to follow that programme.

"It is only when we get out of that programme that we are free to make decisions of our own again."