FINE GAEL TDs and Senators have voted unanimously to endorse party policy for a national recovery bank and to oppose the Government’s National Asset Management Agency (Nama) plan.
Speaking after a discussion at the Fine Gael think-in yesterday, finance spokesman Richard Bruton said: “There was a unanimous vote in support of opposing Nama because the principles on which it is based are flawed.”
Nama had to be changed “root and branch” and the Government would have to “abandon the principle of paying anything other than market value for these loans”.
Asked about comments by former Fine Gael leader and taoiseach Dr Garret FitzGerald that a defeat of the Nama legislation could place the economy in the hands of the IMF, Mr Bruton said: “The notion that we should pass legislation that’s fundamentally flawed and that would in some way be in the national interest is profoundly objectionable to me.
“The duty of an opposition is to put government’s proposals under scrutiny; where they are profoundly wrong and based on flawed principles, we should oppose them,” Mr Bruton said.
The think-in also heard a presentation from Dutch government official Theo van Uum on the health services in the Netherlands which are being used as a model for Fine Gael’s Fair Care plan.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said about Prof Brendan Drumm’s statement that he would not seek to renew his contract as head of the HSE: “He has not been a good manager and what we need now in the Irish system . . . are managers.”
