GREEN PARTY:THE GREEN Party could prove a bridge builder between Fine Gael and Labour in marrying inconsistencies between their economic policies, the party's finance spokesman and chairman Dan Boyle said yesterday.
Mr Boyle said there were clear inconsistencies between Fine Gael and Labour in terms of the ratios they were proposing for cutting public expenditure relative to increasing taxation. The Greens could help resolve those differences in a new coalition deal.
Fine Gael was proposing a ratio of 2:1 in terms of cutting spending relative to increasing tax while Labour was proposing a 1:1 ratio between the two. The Greens would adopt a more innovative approach in its economic policy to be launched next week, he said.
The party will propose a 65:35 ratio with, approximately, a 33 per cent cut in current public expenditure, Mr Boyle said.
There would be a further cut, also of approximately 33 per cent, in capital project expenditure and a 33 per cent increase in taxation revenues.
“Our preference in 2007 was for a rainbow but the numbers didn’t add up and there wasn’t a willingness to form such a government – that would still be our preference and we think we could still help by marrying the inconsistencies that exist between Fine Gael and Labour. I think in terms of managing the public finances, we might be closer to Fine Gael than to Labour. I think in terms of social policy, I think we would be closer to Labour than to Fine Gael and in terms of environmental policy, we have a more coherent approach than either party.”
Describing the Greens as potential “bridge builders” rather than “matchmakers” in such a scenario, he said it was entirely a matter for voters to decide. Everything would depend on the seats each party won in the general election.
Mr Boyle, who was launching his election campaign to regain the seat he lost in 2007 in Cork South Central, had earlier criticised Labour’s proposal to renegotiate the EU-IMF deal and said Ireland could not unilaterally renegotiate the 5.8 per cent interest rate.
“It can’t be renegotiated unilaterally by Ireland. It can only be reassessed in a European-wide solution that affects Ireland and Greece and Portugal and Spain and Italy – that’s the only way it can be done and for Eamon Gilmore to claim it can be done is fundamentally dishonest.”