TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has refused to bring the budget forward but gave a commitment to the Dáil to call an election in February when the Finance Bill has passed.
An attack on Mr Cowen’s leadership fizzled out at last night’s Fianna Fáil parliamentary meeting with broad agreement to leave the issue until the new year.
Former minister Mary O’Rourke said there should be a special party meeting in early January and those interested in the leadership should throw their hats into the ring.
Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin yesterday signalled her willingness to stand for the leadership. “If ever in the future there is a vacancy, and that could be a long way down the road, if members of the parliamentary party wanted me to throw my hat into the ring then I would.”
Party chief whip John Curran said after the meeting that a number of people had raised the issue of the Taoiseach’s leadership and he had told them there were mechanisms in the party to deal with the issue if anyone wanted. Mr Curran described the meeting as “business like” and said that discussion also focused on the budget and the four-year plan to be published today.
The meeting unanimously agreed to a motion from Meath East TD Thomas Byrne calling on all members of the parliamentary party to support the budget and the four-year plan.
The plan will propose dramatic reductions of almost 15 per cent in the social welfare budget over the next four years.
However, the front-loading for the first year of the plan will be more modest than in other sectors with cuts of around €800 million. Existing pensions will not be hit.
Earlier in the Dáil, the Taoiseach rejected a suggestion by Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny that the budget should be brought forward to early next week and all the attendant legislation cleared through the Dáil by Christmas.
Mr Kenny said during Leaders’ Questions that Fine Gael would act constructively in the interests of the State and would accept the Taoiseach’s invitation to meet officials from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank. He said that if the budget was dealt with next week, followed by a slimmed down version of the Finance Bill, the process could be completed by Christmas and an election held in January.
“I will facilitate the House sitting from Monday to Friday until all of that has been completed through the legislative process by Christmas. This will bring some measure of certainty to a Government that is out of control,” said Mr Kenny, who said it appeared that there was an ongoing attempt to cling to power at all costs.
Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore was yesterday given a mandate by his parliamentary party to take whatever action he deemed necessary in the current circumstances.
A spokesman for the Green Party dismissed the suggestion that an election could be postponed until March or April saying that it would not be delayed beyond February.
EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday that it was “essential” that Ireland passed the budget sooner rather than later.
“Let’s get it out of the way and let’s move on,” he said in Strasbourg, where he met Irish MEPs.
Sinn Féin announced yesterday that it had tabled a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach. If Pearse Doherty is elected as a new Sinn Féin TD for Donegal South West it will give the party and two Independent TDs the number to form a technical group in the Dáil which will enable the motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach to be tabled next week.