Any politicians for the 3.1bn adjustment?

[shnaek]

Are there any politicians or political parties in this country who are in favour of the 3.1bn adjustment in the budget?

I haven't found any here in Cork, and nationally there doesn't seem to be any. Even Fine Fail, who you'd have hoped might have learned something about fiscal responsibility since their fiscal recklessness destroyed the country, are in favour of a 2.4bn adjustment. If we lived in Germany, Holland, Switzerland etc. there'd be at least a few politicians if not a party advocating paying down debt and taking a long term view.

But all I can find is the likes of the Fiscal Council (what is the point of them if the government can go and ignore them? Are they as useless as the financial regulator was before the crash?) and certain economists advocating going ahead with the full 3.1bn cut - i.e., the same kind of people who warned about the property crash that nobody saw coming.

Ireland - continually doomed to failure? Or perhaps I am wrong in thinking that blind optimism isn't the way to go. We are one of the worlds most optimistic nations, and sher don't things always work themselves out in the end.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

I think that there is a group of young Fine Gael TDs who are calling for increased austerity.

all I can find is the likes of the Fiscal Council (what is the point of them if the government can go and ignore them?)

The Fiscal Council does not make the decisions, that is the role of government. The debate would be even more against cuts in their absence. If they were not calling for €3.1 billion of cuts, the guys calling for €2.4 billion would seem extreme.

 

[shnaek]

I think that there is a group of young Fine Gael TDs who are calling for increased austerity.

I'll have a look around and see if I can find any of them supporting the 3.1bn cut. I'm not saying it's the right or wrong thing to do, but I think it's a dangerous thing when all politicians are on one side of an argument, especially if it's a populist one.

The Fiscal Council does not make the decisions, that is the role of government. The debate would be even more against cuts in their absence. If they were not calling for €3.1 billion of cuts, the guys calling for €2.4 billion would seem extreme.

True, that's a fair point.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

They wrote a letter to the Irish Times recently

Seán Conlan, Seán Kyne, Pat Deering, Paul Connaughton, Brendan Griffin, Noel Harrington, Anthony Lawlor, Eoghan Murphy

We believe that it is vitally important to continue to reduce the budget deficit from levels which are still unsustainable. We also believe it is important that reduction targets continue to be exceeded as they have been over recent years. However, to cushion the blow in 2014, a slower reduction in the deficit in a bid to invest in a job creating capital spending programme is recommended.