FINANCE:IRELAND NEEDS a "new third banking force", Fine Gael deputy finance spokesman Brian Hayes said yesterday.
Mr Hayes said Ireland’s international reputation was “on the floor” and restoring the State’s credibility was vital whoever was in government after the election.
“I don’t believe that for a minute longer the banks should be held in public ownership. We need to get the banks back into private ownership and lending again. That requires a strong position in terms of a new banking force,” he said. “We need a new third banking force in this country.”
Mr Hayes was speaking at a Trinity Business Alumni breakfast briefing sponsored by The Irish Timesand others, which was also addressed by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan and Labour Party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.
“I think it’s important that we’ve a stable government, a strong government, a government with a five-year mandate that can do what it wants to do . . . If a government is comprising of ourselves and others we have got to recreate that international credibility,” Mr Hayes said.
Mr Lenihan expressed surprise at Fine Gael’s pledge to reverse the minimum wage cut introduced by the Government. Wage restraint and cost control could not be ignored and they had not been central to the debate in the election campaign, he said.
“The other burning issue is the whole question of bonds,” Mr Lenihan said. “I notice in the last few weeks there’s a growing recognition among all the parties that unilateral default is not an option for Ireland.” He said Ireland had to remain open for investment.
Mr Lenihan said the Government had taken many difficult but necessary decisions, “and I’ve no doubt when the polls close on Friday week there will be a considerable political cost attaching to those decisions”.
However, he insisted an export-led recovery was under way. Living standards had dropped and an unemployment rate of 13.4 per cent was “not an attractive phenomenon”, but it was “vastly better” than what had been predicted. “Ireland will actually be paying its way in the world this year,” he said.
Ms Burton said Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were in “gross denial”. “We need a responsible alternative to fiscal brutalism if we are to put the economy on a path to sustainable prosperity,” she added.
She said the mutual dependence of the private and public sectors was key to Ireland’s economy.
Ms Burton said the bank crisis had not gone away and she described the Government’s blanket guarantee as “wretched” and the most damaging individual decision in the history of independent Ireland.
