SINN FÉIN STRATEGY MEETING:Speaking on the second day of its strategic meeting in Howth, Co Dublin, Sinn Féin's national chairwoman Mary Lou McDonald said the latest exchequer figures that forecast a €5 billion deficit for 2008 highlighted the urgent need to address key issues that emerged during the Lisbon referendum campaign.
"We are saying that as a matter of urgency, rather than daydreaming about future referendums or getting Lisbon through the back door through the Oireachtas. The Government at an EU level [needs to] secure our position on taxation and, equally, secure vulnerable workers from exploitation."
Low-paid workers should not bear the brunt of any cutbacks that may be announced in the budget, said the Dublin MEP, who also called for anti-inflation measures to be introduced. She criticised the lack of visibility of Government Ministers during August.
"I think it has not been lost that the summer has just drifted by and we are in a state of almost suspended animation," she said.
"We are in the eye of the storm and yet where has the political leadership been? It has simply been absent." Sinn Féin is developing a new economic policy that it will publish in the run-up to the budget. However, Ms McDonald said there was consensus that State borrowing would have to increase in the short-term. She also said the country was in the throes of an unprecedented public finance crisis.
"That debate is almost closed. There is almost universal acceptance that we can't be bound by the strictures of European borrowing levels," she said.
The party discussed its strategy in the wake of the Lisbon referendum yesterday. It is expected to announce a major campaign this autumn in which it will outline its detailed proposals on how Ireland may get what it describes as a "better deal" from Europe.
