Garda security was tight at the public meeting hosted by Fianna Fáil TD Frank Fahey in a Galway hotel last night, with both uniformed and a number of plain-clothed Garda present both in and outside the conference room.
Mr Fahey said he had not requested the Garda presence at the Clayton Hotel, and said that everyone was welcome to attend, including a number of protesters supporting the Galway Unites Against the Cuts campaign.
In his opening address, the Galway West TD said that the meeting was “not political”, and was a “genuine attempt to give people an opportunity to express their anger”.
However, Mr Fahey was clearly shaken when he was both booed and applauded after his address, where he outlined his views on the cause of the economic downturn. One of the mistakes the Government had made in his view, was its failure to introduce “counter-cyclical policies” to dampen a boom caused by lower interest rates after Ireland joined the euro, he said.
Mr Fahey admitted that the fault lay with a government that he had been a part of, and he wished to apologise for this. However, measures put in place over the past few years had allowed for the growth in exports now witnessed, he said.
In time, Fianna Fáil would be recognised for doing the “right thing” since July 2008, he said, and would do better in the general election than recent opinion polls had predicted.
During a sometimes heated question and answer session, several participants criticised Government policy, particularly in relation to wage cuts, and cuts in spending on health, education and public services.
Asked about his own property interests, Mr Fahey said that he had a property portfolio which involved members of his family and other partners. He also made annual declarations on this, he said, and he had been "absolutely careful over the years to make my returns in a very open and ethical way".
Asked about his role in the Corrib gas controversy, Mr Fahey said that he had very careful to follow procedures that applied in the Department of the Marine at the time.
"I am very proud of the decisions I made in relation to Corrib gas, and the west of Ireland will benefit for generations to come very significantly from this gas which will come ashore".
The Minister for Finance’s special economic adviser Dr Alan Ahearne said the current growth level of exports is much stronger than he had anticipated.
Dr Ahearne, who was heckled, said that this 13 per cent growth in exports would have a significant impact on economic recovery.
He also said he did not believe there would be further significant wage cuts, as competitiveness had already improved significantly.
In his analysis, Dr Ahearne said that GDP for the last three-quarters of 2010 had shown that it had stabilised. The growth in exports would prove to be the “engine that pulls the train” out of the recession, he said.
Eventually, companies in this sector would have to hire more staff and this had already been illustrated this week with Intel’s plans to expand in Co Kildare.
Dr Ahearne said that pay did “not need to fall to Chinese levels”, and wages would probably “stagnate” rather than fall. The Government’s four-year plan had put emphasis on reducing competitiveness, he said.
If a series of measures taken recently by Government had not been put in place, a deficit of 12 per cent in GDP would have risen to 20 per cent, he said.
Dr Ahearne noted that spending between 2000 and 2008 had increased by 140 per cent, but it was forecast that this would return to 2007 spending levels by the end of the four-year plan.
The meeting was also addressed by Aer Arann chairman Pádraig Ó Céidigh.
When the meeting ended in disarray after a walk-out initiated by the Free Education for Everyone campaign, Joe McNamara, who is facing charges of driving a concrete mixer into the gates of Leinster House last September, seized a microphone and told Mr Fahey he would run against him as an independent candidate in Galway West in the general election.