Madam, - Despite the claims of John O'Donoghue (July 24th) and others to the contrary, my comments on the Irish presidency in the European Parliament last week were not an outburst but a carefully considered two-minute speech in which I made three main points.
First, I congratulated the Taoiseach on the successful conclusion of the negotiations on the European Constitution.
Second, I criticised the Irish presidency for its failure to make progress on a number of key European issues - protecting temporary agency workers, pushing for debt cancellation, standing up to George Bush and advancing the Lisbon agenda in a socially inclusive manner.
Third, I criticised the Taoiseach's nomination of Mr Charlie McCreevy, one of Europe's most right-wing finance ministers, as Ireland's next Commissioner and stated why I did so. In addition to mentioning his attitude to the poor, I pointed out that he was one of the finance ministers who had fought hard (and unsuccessfully) to end democratic control by the European Parliament of the €100 billion European budget.
In Fianna Fáil eyes, political objections by an elected Irish member of the European Parliament of another Irish politician are against the "national interest". I have never accepted Fianna Fáil's definition of the national interest, which usually boils down to blindly supporting IBEC and the IFA and their European counterparts, and I will not do so in this case. It is, in any event, a rather old-fashioned concept of the common good in a globalising world.
Mr McCreevy's nomination as Commissioner is being portrayed as his removal from Irish politics and the ending of his national political role. This is not the case. The Commission is a powerful political institution with the sole right to initiate European legislation, to interpret and police the Growth and Stability Pact, and to drive the Lisbon Agenda, the social agenda, and competition policy, and it is incumbent on all of us to express our views on Mr McCreevy's nomination to this body. If approved by the European Parliament, the political, economic and social agenda which he articulates would only serve to increase inequality across Europe just as it has in Ireland over the past seven years. His nomination should be scrutinised in this context.
Despite what John O'Donoghue and others may pretend, 1997 was not "year zero" for the Irish economy. The FF/PD coalition inherited a budget surplus, an inflation rate of just 1.5 per cent, and an economy that was creating 55,000 new jobs. The policies put in place by the Rainbow Coalition put financial resources at the disposal of the incoming FF/PD coalition that previous administrations, including the one of which I was a member, did not have.
Mr McCreevy squandered the opportunity of investing these resources wisely and for the benefit of Irish society. His stewardship as Finance Minister has made Ireland the second most unequal society in the Western world. It has given us appalling standards of public services, particularly in our accident and emergency services and in our schools.
He engaged in a two-year spending splurge to buy the last general election and has since imposed the "savage 16" attacks on social welfare recipients, echoing his "dirty dozen" cutbacks when Minister for Social Welfare in the early 1990s. His taxation policies have resulted in more than 50 per cent of taxpayers now paying tax at the marginal rate of 42 per cent, and rocketing prices for basic necessities.
I do not support Mr McCreevy's nomination because I do not believe that he has a commitment to the values of social inclusion, solidarity, and equality - the hallmarks of the European social model which are now set out in the new European Constitution. And I will continue to argue this case. - Yours, etc.,
PROINSIAS DE ROSSA MEP, European Parliament offices, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2.