Taoiseach Brian Cowen has rejected a challenge from Fine Gael to call a general election if Government parties suffer heavy losses in the forthcoming local and European elections.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil this afternoon, the Fine Gael leader claimed Mr Cowen’s first 12 months as Taoiseach have been a disaster marked by the death of social partnership, a doubling of unemployment, three failed budgets, the loss of the Lisbon Treaty referendum and a failure to reform the public services.
“After your 12 months in office, how do you account for the state of the country that you have led?” Mr Kenny asked.
“How do you account for the situation that we now find ourselves in which is utterly depressing and out of which you have given no reassurance whatsoever that you have the capacity, or your Government, to lead the people out of the mess you have created?
While accepting the recent increase in taxes and cuts in services were an “imposition” on the public, the Taoiseach said they were a “necessary response … given the scale of the problem and the need to provide a sustainable path forward”.
He said that “rectification of public finance position is an absolute prerequisite to our recovery”. The Government has outlined its plans for the next three years to get Ireland back on its feet and has taken “very significant” measures to ensure this happens.
“All of those measures are part of an overall plan to bring balance back to our public finances over a reasonable timeframe,” he said, adding that the need to act was accepted by all the social partners.
“Of course these measures are unpopular in themselves in the short term, but they are necessary in the longer term in the interests of the country itself.”
Mr Kenny said the Government has “no mandate” for what it is doing. “As Taoiseach, you have not submitted yourself to the people for adjudication.”
Mr Kenny continued: “You have banjaxed the economy, destroyed the hopes and careers of thousands of young people and robbed people of their money.”
The Fine Gael leader said the electorate will “pass its verdict” on Mr Cowen’s performance on June 5th and challenged him to call an election if the public “convicts” the Government in the polling booths.
Mr Cowen dismissed the call for an election insisting “the people on the ground know that there is a context” in which tax increases and services cuts were happening".
He said the Government has been given a mandate to rule until 2012. “That mandate we have is one we wish to discharge,” he said.
