Gilmore accuses Cowen of 'stunning failures' in finance

TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore clashed again in the Dáil over Mr Cowen’s record as minister for finance before the economic crisis emerged.

Mr Gilmore accused the Taoiseach of using a speech he made last week to distance himself from the crisis, and of claiming that “you yourself weren’t to blame for it because nobody told you what was happening and what was coming down the track”.

Mr Gilmore said Mr Cowen was in government for 13 years and so must take responsibility. The problem, he said, was not that he didn’t get the advice but that he didn’t act on it.

But Mr Cowen defended his role and said it was wrong to suggest that “all of this was foreseeable”. It was incorrect to suggest that the mid-term prospects for the Irish economy in 2007 could have foreseen “us facing the situation we faced in the last two years”.

He conceded the elimination of property-based incentives could have happened sooner. But he also said he was “the first minister for finance in the last 20 years to actually do something in relation to property-based tax incentives”, which had been introduced by various parties in various governments.

During Leaders’ Questions Mr Gilmore cited warnings about the property sector from 2003 onwards by the IMF, the OECD and other agencies during the time Mr Cowen was minister for finance. “You got the warnings about what was happening in the property market. You got the warnings about the consequences of light regulation.”

He said Mr Cowen blamed a “stunning failure of corporate governance” but he told the Taoiseach it was “a stunning failure of government and a stunning failure particularly by yourself because you were the guy in charge as minister for finance”.

Mr Cowen, however, insisted that he always accepted his responsibilities.

He said every decision he took was “taken rationally at the time based on advice and my own judgment at the time”.