Opposition must nail its colours to the mast

15 November 2009  

This week, the Dáil will debate the government’s pre-budget report. It is an opportunity not just for the government to lay out the case for its budgetary strategy and prepare the public for the necessary cuts to come, but for the opposition to offer a critique of that strategy.

Eamon Gilmore and Enda Kenny must also use the opportunity to articulate their alternative plans for the country, the economy and the public finances. In other words, they must say unequivocally what they would do if they were in government.

Let us be clear on one thing: responsibility for much of the crisis in the public finances rests with the Fianna Fáil-led governments which expanded public spending while narrowing the tax base so as to make any economic contraction lethal for the exchequer. And let us be clear also about another thing: very, very few people were calling on the government to spend less money during the boom years.

There were no demonstrations on Kildare Street demanding a responsible and sustainable budgetary strategy. There were no marches in favour of a property tax. And the consistent critique of the opposition - with a few individual and occasional exceptions - was not that the government was recklessly spending money with no thought for the future, but that it was not spending enough.

Spending money is all well and good, and as the recent political history of this country demonstrates, it makes governing parties popular with an electorate which has been as happy to engage in short-term grasping as were their political masters happy to give it to them.

The problem this country now faces is that the huge increases in public sector pay and numbers, and the exponential increases in social welfare payments such as child benefit and the old age pension still fall due even though the tax revenues which used to sustain them have disappeared.

This previous recklessness by the government - urged on by much of the media and certainly by the opposition - is what has destroyed the public finances. And is what now must - at great pain - be rectified.

The opposition will of course, lambast the government for its economic management. Fair enough. But get it over with, Messers Kenny and Gilmore, and then tell us what you would do.

Don’t pretend that there are a few fiscal fairy godmothers in private jets who can solve the crisis in the government finances with a few super wealth taxes. Don’t tell us that the social welfare bill can be reduced by the government getting people back to work - this is just avoiding the issue of welfare cuts. And don’t tell us the public sector pay bill can be cut without cutting wages - this is just playing to the union gallery. This is a serious time in our country’s history, a time for tough choices and plain speaking.

Kenny and Gilmore will, barring an earthquake, lead the next government. It’s about time they started telling the Irish people what sort of a government it would be.