OPPOSITION REACTION:PROPOSALS FOR all-party consensus and national government were really a ploy to keep Fianna Fáil in government, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore has said.
“All of this talk about national consensus and national government and so on: really what that’s about is keeping Fianna Fáil in government,” he said. “Fianna Fáil have got to be put out of government because they have made a mess of the country; the country needs a fresh start.”
A general election should be held "sooner rather than later", he told RTÉ's News at Oneyesterday.
Mr Gilmore had requested last April that the Government provide information to the Opposition about the financial situation and this was finally about to happen: “We will engage with that process and we will produce our set of proposals in response to the four-year plan that the Government says it will bring forward in mid-November.”
The national interest did not require a consensus between Government and Opposition, but rather, “getting Fianna Fáil out of government, getting a new government in place, getting political stability and getting an economic plan that we can have confidence will be implemented”.
Fine Gael spokesman on children Charles Flanagan said: “It appears clear that the Taoiseach is entirely uncomfortable with Mr Gormley’s ‘kite’. It seems to me to have been a publicity stunt on the part of the Greens.”
Although Fine Gael would take up the offer to meet officials from the Department of Finance, “we will retain our independence in terms of decision-making”, said Mr Flanagan. On the proposal for an all-party forum, Mr Flanagan said: “We already have a forum, and the forum is Dáil Éireann.” He doubted the value of “sitting down behind closed doors, in secret”.
Fine Gael education spokesman Fergus O’Dowd said: “The confusion between Fianna Fáil and the Greens over a national consensus on the economy is unhelpful at such a crucial time.”
He added: “This fiasco has reflected particularly badly on the Greens. First of all John Gormley called for a national government. Then he back pedalled and decided that a national consensus would be a better idea. Remarkably, he forgot to run this idea by the Taoiseach. And now Mr Gormley has admitted that he virtually made up the proposal on the spot.”
Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said: “Many voters will view the call from the Green Party as a desperate attempt to remind the public of its existence and a gesture that has more to do with trying to keep Fianna Fáil in power and to rescue Fianna Fáil and Green seats than rescuing the country.”
