FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern has said he was constantly being urged to increase spending and no one in the Dáil “gave a damn” about the economy when he was leader of the government.
Speaking in a two-part documentary The PDs: From Boom to Bustwhich begins tonight on RTÉ One, Mr Ahern said: "All I was ever getting in the Dáil was for more money to be spent on education, more money for third-level, more money for research, more money for cancer.
“I was never asked a question about the economy. Nobody cared a damn about the economy.
“I must have been the only prime minister in Europe who was hardly ever being asked about the economy,” he said.
“It was just spend more money, spend more money.”
Former attorney general Michael McDowell said in the documentary that his 1998 proposal to introduce an independent watchdog to monitor banks was never taken up.
“Nobody was reporting to the Department of Finance and the minister was not being told about the solvency issues within the banks or the prudential issues because the Central Bank was supposed to be our watchdog,” Mr McDowell said.
“It was in its basket snoozing quietly throughout all of this period.”
Mr McDowell had chaired a committee to make recommendations on banking regulation and he said the committee suggested there should be a new stand-alone independent regulator which would be fully accountable.
“Our committee’s report was abandoned,” he said.
However, Mr McCreevy defended himself in the documentary and said Ireland was not unique in having a banking system in disarray.
“Regulation has been found wanting in this financial crisis all over the world, not just in Ireland,” he said.
“We are fascinated about blaming people in the past here.”
And former PD leader Dessie O’Malley drew comparisons between the economy in the 1980s when the PDs were formed, and the economy today.
“The biggest difference is, is that it’s much worse now,” he said.
