Enda Kenny, Michael Noonan defend plan to spend €12bn

Fine Gael is scrambling to explain projected spending powers for the next government after its economic blueprint for the country was overshadowed with questions about holes in future budget plans.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan was yesterday caught up in questions about the party’s promise to spend €12bn over the next five years, a massive jump beyond what the country’s spending watchdog predicts will be available for the next administration.

Fine Gael ministers were forced to explain the contradiction between the party’s spending predictions and those of the Fiscal Advisory Council, which says only €3.2bn will be available for the next government.

Enda Kenny also brushed aside a new low for his party in the opinion polls, saying a drop in support to 28% would encourage candidates and even banish any talk of his automatic return as Taoiseach.

He said: “It is very far removed from any talk about coronations. This is a case, actually, where it’s going to fire up the Fine Gael organisation around the country.”

Promises of 200,000 jobs by 2020, abolishing of the USC over five years, and investment to recruit 10,000 frontline public service workers received little attention at a packed press conference in Fine Gael’s election headquarters in Dublin’s IFSC.

The party said it would take more people out of the USC net next year and abolish it for everyone by 2021, through a series of clawbacks to see benefits retrieved from higher earners.

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

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

Mr Noonan said there is not a “huge divergence” between what the Fine Gael plans are and the predictions of the fiscal council.

Following criticism that the party was “making it up on the spot” about promises for a rainy day fund, Mr Noonan said €2.5bn would be set aside. No specific trigger has been agreed on when or how the emergency fund would be tapped by the next government.

Mr Noonan said it would only be available after 2018 and that if it is not used, the monies would help pay down Ireland’s debt.

Opposition parties seized on Fine Gael’s spending promises, declared them “the fastest fiscal flip-flop of the election campaign”.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald accused the party of “spoofing and “making it up as they go along”.

Mr Kenny and Mr Noonan both took the opportunity during their press conference to claim Sinn Féin would be courted by Fianna Fáil after the election, with the latter not being able to resist the temptation of calling on the help of left-wing TDs to make up a government.

Mr Noonan said Fianna Fáil’s refusal to enter coalition with Sinn Féin could not be taken seriously.

He said that he had been around long enough to remember when Fianna Fáil insisted it would not do business with the Progressive Democrats or Labour.

Mr Noonan said that Fine Gael’s economic proposals had been costed, were conservative, and that the only alternative government being offered to voters was one made up of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin.

Mr Kenny also reiterated that his party would not go into government with Fianna Fáil after the general election.

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