FINE GAEL:FINE GAEL finance spokesman Michael Noonan committed his party to balancing the current budget in 2016 and confirmed a change in its strategy of a three to one ratio of cuts to taxation.
Mr Noonan said Fine Gael would reveal its full fiscal and banking policies tomorrow, but said there was “movement” on the policy that spending cuts should account for two-thirds of future adjustments, with one-third coming from taxation.
“There was a 3:1 breakdown [that] was our commitment before the budget.
“The €6 billion correction, where certain things were done through tax increases and other things were done through cuts in expenditure, have changed the basic arithmetic,” Mr Noonan said.
“We have re-examined the position and . . . there is movement,” he added.
Speaking at the launch of Fine Gael’s five-point plan, Mr Noonan said Fine Gael would bring in a balanced budget “on the current side” in 2016, while there could continue to be borrowing “on the capital side”.
He said Fine Gael would “pay out of taxes for the day-to-day running of the country” from 2016 onwards, and any borrowing “would be for the purposes of investment to create growth and jobs”.
He stressed Fine Gael would not increase income tax or corporation tax. The correction would be made largely though cuts in spending, specifically savings brought about by cutting government expenditure.
“We favour spending cuts rather than tax increases but we are not doing this for ideological reasons . . . corrections made by tax increases have three times the adverse impact on job creation than corrections made by reductions in expenditure,” Mr Noonan said.
He said the EU-IMF bailout deal would have to be renegotiated and the State’s biggest problem was the “fiasco of a banking policy pursued by the Government”.
Party leader Enda Kenny said his top priority was tackling the crisis in employment, and he rejected criticism of Fine Gael’s policy by the Labour Party.
“There was comment from the Labour Party last week that Fine Gael’s intention was to compulsorily sack 30,000 public servants. That is completely false.
“The 30,000 is made up of 18,000 in addition to the 12,000 contained in the Government programme, and all of those 18,000 are voluntary redundancies,” Mr Kenny said.
Fine Gael wanted a “smaller and better” public sector, Mr Kenny added.
The party valued greatly the work of teachers, gardaí, nurses and local government workers.
“The only alternative to public service reform is more tax increases, indeed as proposed by the Labour Party, and more slash-and-burn policies from Fianna Fáil,” he said.
Responding to Labour leader Eamon Gilmore’s claim that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were “comfortable with each other’s policies”, Mr Kenny outlined what he said were three main policy areas of difference with Fianna Fáil.
He cited fiscal strategy, banking policy and reform.
Mr Kenny said that while Fine Gael had in the past supported the Government’s work on the Lisbon Treaty and the Belfast Agreement, “we had and still retain very fundamental policy difference of approach with Fianna Fáil”.
There was some confrontation between Fine Gael personnel and reporters who wanted to continue asking questions when the party’s director of elections, Phil Hogan, announced the press conference, which had started late, was over.
Mr Hogan said: “We have to go, cut the press conference, because the leader has a schedule and he has to meet it as well as you have.”
Mr Kenny said: “I’ve got to go to Cavan, Monaghan, east Meath, Louth and Dún Laoghaire”.
He then took one more question.
Earlier, Fine Gael’s deputy leader and spokesman on health Dr James Reilly said he wanted to see a patient-centred health service. “It is not about a self-serving system. Those days will be over under Fine Gael.”
Communications spokesman Leo Varadkar said Fine Gael wanted to “reverse some of the social misery that has been caused”.
