The Budget Debate Tomorrow

16th November, 2009

The Taoiseach spent the weekend warning ourselves and the Labour Party that we need to give specifics of how we would find €4 billion in savings. This is for a special debate in the Dail tomorrow.

 

Let’s be clear about what is happening here. The Government have not yet revealed their plan despite the thousands of civil servants and supporters at their disposal. Minister Lenihan has not yet said what he will do but he wants Richard Bruton to explain what he would do. I mean, do they think that people are stupid?

 

Last time I checked we were not in government so we do not have an obligation to provide a costed and detailed plan. Despite this we do have an obligation to spell out the principles of how we would act were we in government. We have done this again and again. We will use the debate tomorrow to do the same. This is what we did at the last budget. We set out our strategy and costed it. When this debate happens in the Seanad next week these are the principles that we will refer to.

 

The Sunday Tribune had an excellent piece yesterday where they analysed the work that we have been doing in this area. It’s available here. It doesn’t uncritically praise our work in this area but it does recognise we have taken our responsibilities seriously and provided a plan.

 

So, there’ll be no need for any lectures from the Taoiseach.