TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen, has declared that he will not shirk from “stark realities” in the days and weeks ahead as his Government attempts to resolve the crises in the banking system and the public finances.
He told a meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party in Athlone yesterday that the next few months would be a defining period given the immense political, economic and social challenges facing the country.
“This country is borrowing almost €400 million per week. That cannot continue. We have a banking system that is choked and not meeting the needs of businesses and individuals around the country. We must fix it.
“And we are being asked to vote, in effect, on whether Ireland will be an active and fully committed member of the European Union. We must ratify the Lisbon Treaty. These are three immense and immediate challenges that we must positively resolve.
“We must do so, so that Ireland can begin the path to recovery,” he said.
Mr Cowen said if the correct policy choices were made the country could beat the recession.
“But to do that we have to be brave enough to make the right choices; and we have to be prepared to take short-term pain for long-term gain.”
He said the country’s fortunes could be turned around in the lifetime of the Government “but only if we have the courage to do it”.
Mr Cowen told his TDs and Senators that the coming budget would be difficult, but their task was to get people to understand why they were taking decisions to fix the banks and the public finances and get the country back to growth.
“This is difficult. Most of the 1980s was a time of gloom and going backwards as a country. We need to convince people that we can have a faster recovery and a better future if we bite the bullet now. This is our strategy and as the world economy improves we will see a return to growth and job-creation.
“But to get there we have to jump the hurdles ahead and not be deterred nor distracted.
“We have to make the right decisions in the days and weeks ahead. Our job as politicians, as legislators, as civic leaders, is to try and cut a path through the fog of negativity that is drowning out every voice of reason in this country,” said the Taoiseach.
He added that what Ireland wanted and needed was unity of purpose, strong collective government and brave decision-making.
“It is our responsibility. It is up to our generation to get us beyond this crisis. It is not just a responsibility to ourselves. It is our obligation to our children and our children’s children. And that means pushing ourselves and not being afraid to face stark realities.
“We need to get real if we think that we can recover as a country without a good and viable banking system.
We need to get real if we think we can recover by rejecting Lisbon and being tossed to the periphery of the EU. We need to get real if we think we can continue to spend at the rate we are spending at.”
He said that was why the Fianna Fáil agenda was to deal with these national imperatives now.
“And I want to say to those who accuse me or any of my colleagues in this party or this Government of bailing out bankers, punishing the poor, protecting the rich or selling out our sovereignty – that it’s time to stop playing politics with the future of the Irish people.”
Mr Cowen said nobody should doubt that the coming budget would be difficult but the measures to be implemented were vital for the survival of Ireland’s fiscal sovereignty.
“It is that stark. The reality is, failure to control our finances means we end up paying higher rates for the money we borrow. And that is ‘dead’ money that we could use to provide essential public services,” he said.
