INTERVIEW:FIANNA FÁIL had the right to replace its own ministers in the Government just the same as the Green Party, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said last night.
He said he and colleagues had met a Green Party group yesterday morning and discussed the Climate Change Bill before going on to the reshuffle.
He told them he had a “renewed mandate” from his parliamentary party to replace ministers.
The Greens expressed concern the Government would be seen as trying to extend its mandate and that it would send out the wrong signals generally.
“It’s not a political stunt. It’s about accountability,” Mr Cowen said, defending his approach.
Outgoing ministers themselves felt they should be replaced on grounds of accountability since they were not running in the general election.
He had already been planning to make changes in the new year, even before the Greens announced last November that they were pulling out of Government. Then Dermot Ahern, Noel Dempsey and Tony Killeen all indicated they would not be standing in the election. He decided to make all the changes together.
There was a convention in coalitions that party leaders could pick their own ministers. “It is an important point for the public to understand. It’s about our self-respect as a party, it’s about us defending our honour as well.”
He said his absence from the Dáil early yesterday morning was normal practice on Thursdays.
In relation to the Greens, he said: “We answered any queries they had at the meeting on Monday morning last.”
He said: “You can’t make decisions on the basis simply of a public perception.” It was not correct to say the Greens had a veto on appointments but now “they changed the arrangements that apply to coalition governments”.
He had made it clear he would be appointing replacements for those who would not be standing.
Asked if he would even make it to March 11th, he said the Government would proceed to publish and enact the Finance Bill before holding the general election.
“The Government, having two parties in it, both sides of that government are entitled to make appointments as they so wish.”
He said: “I believe it is cynical to leave such ministers in office.”
It was “a point of principle” that he had a prerogative as Taoiseach to appoint replacement ministers.
He was reflecting the majority view of his party to show the public that Fianna Fáil had the people to run the country.
He said Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin was entitled to her view that he should not proceed with the appointments.
The Greens had met at 9.50am yesterday, and Mr Gormley had persuaded him to wait for some hours but the Green leader would not agree to it even then.
Asked if he would lead Fianna Fáil into the election, he said: “I am the democratically elected leader of the party.”
The Taoiseach was speaking on RTÉ's Six One News.
Earlier Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin said she might have resigned had six new ministers been appointed yesterday. While she did not resign after voting against Mr Cowen in the confidence vote on Tuesday because it was “a party issue”, yesterday “might have been a different question”.
She met Mr Cowen yesterday morning to voice her objections.
“It’s not something that I would have been happy with, not something I could have accepted. I made that quite clear [to Mr Cowen].. I quite genuinely felt that this was the wrong thing to do, so I went over to the Taoiseach and I told him that I felt that the resignations should not be accepted.”