FORMER TÁNAISTE Dick Spring said Taoiseach Brian Cowen had “brought some credibility” to the national consensus initiative after the Green Party had “sprung” the process on him in an unprofessional manner.
The former Labour Party leader said he believed Mr Cowen should have acted sooner and remained unenthusiastic about the idea, which Mr Spring described as a “political ploy” by Green Party leader John Gormley.
Mr Spring was speaking ahead of a Labour Women event in Dublin city centre last night.
“I thought it was very ill-prepared by the Green Party in the first instance. It showed a complete lack of professionalism and it was just badly handled.
“The Government have had three years to tackle the economic problems, with little success unfortunately, and in the apparent dying minutes of the lifetime of this Government the Green Party are trying to find some platform to get some credibility with the public. I think this was strictly a political ploy by Mr Gormley.”
Mr Spring said Mr Cowen had taken control by writing to the leaders of the main Opposition parties inviting them to talks on establishing a consensus on the economy, but the Taoiseach should have moved faster.
“In fairness to the Taoiseach, I think he has brought some credibility into the process this afternoon, from what I’ve been hearing, in that he’s now taking control of it, which he should’ve done from day one.”
Asked if he thought Mr Cowen was enthusiastic about the process, Mr Spring said: “No, I don’t think he’s enthusiastic for it. His junior partners have, no pun intended, sprung it upon him.”
He said the burden of the budget should be evenly distributed when asked about Labour leader Eamon Gilmore’s assertion that Labour in office would not be prepared to raise income taxes for middle-earners or cut social welfare payments.
“The reality of the economic situation we’re facing is that we have to get the budget deficit down to 3 per cent by 2014, and I believe all the parties accept that, and I believe all the parties will have to work towards that if we’re going to resolve the economic crisis.
“And I think the most important aspect of budgetary policy at the present time is to try to make sure that the burden, and there are going to be serious burdens on all the population, but to try to make sure that they are shared across the population.”
Mr Spring, who is a public interest director at Allied Irish Banks, would not be drawn on the Government’s second bailout of the lender announced last month.
