Brendan Howlin: Hung Dáil could risk second crash

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin has warned there is a real prospect of a hung Dáil, risking a second economic crash.

Mon, 15 Feb, 2016 - 00:00

Elaine Loughlin

The Labour minister made the claim as Taoiseach Enda Kenny repeatedly refused to rule out a post-election deal with Fianna Fáil.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner after weekend polls showed neither the Fine Gael-Labour coalition nor the opposition has enough support to enter government on its own, Mr Howlin said a hung Dáil is now a genuine prospect.

“If we don’t have a clear government after polling day, we put our recovery, all the hard work of the last five years, at risk,” he said. “The prospect of a hung Dáil is real.”

Referencing economic and political problems in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, he added: “If we bruise investors, if we push up our interest rates on our payments again, it will be all the more painful and difficult to put it right a second time.”

While the comments were intended to encourage coalition support, and were tempered by Fine Gael’s Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, who said two elections should not happen as “this isn’t the Lisbon Treaty”, they are also likely to increase the focus on a potential Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil deal.

Business group Ibec’s chief executive Danny McCoy said international investors are concerned election instability could cause “a drift towards political parties on the fringes”.

“It is pointless debating how to make the most out of the wealth of an economy, if we don’t create it in the first place,” said Mr McCoy.

When Mr Kenny was asked about the prospect at his party’s election manifesto launch yesterday just hours after the latest Red C poll showed Fine Gael on 28% (-3 percentage points), Labour on 8% (-2), Sinn Féin 20% (+3), Fianna Fáil 18% (+1), and Independents and others 26% (+1), he refused to rule out the move.

He would only say “I do not contemplate” cutting a deal — declining several opportunities to reject it completely and failing to give an ideological difference between the pair.

At a separate event, Tánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton said Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin is wrongly trying to claim “he is the new kid on the block and wasn’t in government for 15 years” during the boom and bust.