The European Commission has told Fine Gael that any part of the Government’s four-year fiscal adjustment plan can be renegotiated, the party's finance spokesman Michael Noonan said today.
"I'm pleased that the Commission has agreed that any or all of this document can be renegotiated," Mr Noonan told reporters outside the Dáil this evening.
But, in a statement, Mr Noonan said the plan was a "disappointment, with a glaring lack of proposals on the banking sector, job creation and cutting wasteful spending in the public sector".
“This plan is disappointing in its poverty of ambition and detail. It was supposed to provide certainty and confidence to both international markets and to the Irish public. Yet it does neither.
“The Irish public is no wiser as to how the fiscal adjustment will affect their families, given the lack of any detail on social welfare changes, taxes and services. The unemployed will be disturbed by the lack of ambition on job creation, with unemployment expected to remain extremely high."
He said international markets would find little comfort in the absence of any figures on the cost of Government’s banking policies and how they will affect the public finances. I
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the party would publish its own budgetary strategy next week.
Earlier enterprise spokesman Richard Bruton said the plan is not “ambitious enough on growth”.
Mr Bruton said the plan is “very unambitious in relation to tapping the pension reserve fund to drive any sort of innovative investments in the country”.
He said the plan did nothing in reducing the size of the Government and reducing public service staff levels by 3,000 a year is not enough.
“The whole size of Government is the problem - they talk about rationalising the quangos but give us no measures to do that.”
Mr Bruton said he was puzzled by the reduction of the minimum wage by €1 because “where Ireland is out of line with other countries is in top wages”.
Labour’s finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton, also questioned why they minimum wage was reduced by €1 as the number of people who receive it is very small.
She said it is “very hard to understand” unless it is “some kind of offering in terms of ideology”.
Ms Burton asked if the plan forms the “basis of the letter of intent the Government has to give the IMF and the European Commission” as part of their negotiations.
She said if it is a letter for the IMF “we need to rethink the budget” as it will be very “difficult to unlock it afterwards”.
Ms Burton also criticised the plan by saying “the heavy lifting is going to be done by people who pay income tax and PAYE”.
And she asked why a greater contribution in capital taxes was not included and why there is nothing about tax exiles.
“The document does not give any confidence that an ambitious reform agenda is being pursued in the public service, with the result that service levels will be cut, instead of maximum efficiency being achieved,” she added.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan described the Government document as “a destruction plan” that will “contract the economy”.
Mr Morgan said: “Even solely dealing with our structural deficit, this plan is in the main a list of deflationary actions that will deepen and lengthen the recession.
“The real issue is that we are about to embark on an insane course of borrowing to fund a failed banking policy. We cannot afford this banking policy, we cannot afford this loan. Most importantly we cannot afford this government.
“We need real negotiators in there now to deal with the banks and burn the bondholders. Not a red cent more should go into Irish banks until their debts are restructured.
“If we proceed with this banking plan this four year plan will be bin lining in a matter of weeks,” he added.
Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins said the plan is an “open declaration of war on working people, the unemployed and young people”.
He said: “Through regressive tax increases like the home tax, water charges and VAT hikes, cuts in pay, the minimum wage, pensions as well as slashing public sector employment the life will be kicked out of the economy.
“The Government’s strategy will not work. These cuts and the private debt burdens we are being told to take on from the banking sector are intolerable and will inevitably be met with resistance”.
