TAOISEACH'S INTERVIEW:TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen will not consider resigning no matter how big the party's losses in the forthcoming elections, he made clear yesterday.
“The last thing the country needs at the moment is another period of instability,” or another general election, he insisted.
Fianna Fáil is predicted to lose a record number of seats, but Mr Cowen said: “I understand the polls are not good. So they’re not good.” He said: “we will survive this local and European elections”, and they had 19 days of campaigning left with 800 capable candidates of good calibre.
He added: “we have the prospect of other parties coming into office who have diametrically opposed policies”.
Referring to comments by Labour leader Eamon Gilmore that his party had serious differences with Fine Gael in relation to the banking situation, Mr Cowen said: “we can’t have that degree of divergence in policy decisions”.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s This Week programme he also denied that comments from senior Green Party members about renegotiating the programme for government marked the beginning of the end of the Coalition.
“I think it’s very important to know that on June 5th we are electing people to our local councils and to the European Parliament and they are important elections in that respect.”
He said: “We have at the moment a united Government that is prepared to take the decisions on the basis of what’s required for the country in the long run.”
He also rejected suggestions that the National Asset Management Agency [Nama] was going “belly up”. It was a “very important part of dealing with the problem that we face today”.
He denied that problems had emerged about Nama that the Government did not consider. “Of course it’s a complex and arduous task to make sure we get this right, but we have to get it right.
“And Government is acting deliberately step-by-step to put in place both the legislative basis on which this will operate and the organisation that will ensure that we will get this done correctly.”
Asked were there circumstances in which he would consider his position, he said: “No there aren’t because people expect us to be in a position to continue to run the country. So long as there is majority support for the Government in Dáil Éireann it will continue.”
He said that “in 2007 we elected a Government for five years and we will have that Government. Are you suggesting that John Brutons government that Mr Kenny was involved in and Mr Gilmore – that they didn’t have a mandate? They served the country for three years without an election.”
When forecasts of losses of up to 60 seats in the local elections were put to him, he said: “we will survive this local and European Parliament elections and we don’t accept the premise in your question that we’re going to lose all these seats”.
Interviewer Niamh Sweeney asked him: “But if you do will you question your mandate?”
He replied: “No. If we do we will continue with the work that we have to get on with as a Government.”
Mr Cowen claimed: “we have an Opposition who don’t have a set of policies that are coherent. In fact they are diametrically opposed to each other.”
On nationalisation of the banks he said: “we have always said, from the beginning that it is an option of last resort. But it is not the first lever you pull.”
They wanted “confidence in the system where investment will be provided and funds will be provided other than from the taxpayer. The taxpayer is already very hard pressed. You can’t be asking the taxpayer as a first resort to take on those sort of responsibilities as well.”
The Taoiseach refused to admit that errors were made in Government policy.
“You can look back in hindsight and say ‘could everyone predict that this was going to happen and would you have the same policies’. No you wouldn’t.”
Asked about raising taxes next year, he said they had “tough decisions to make” in redesigning the tax system because they had lost 30 per cent of that base.
“They had cut the structural deficit by about €8 billion since last May through expenditure cuts and tax increases and “as I say these are not welcome policies”, but people “know they have to have a Government that will take decisions that are necessary”.
