Ministers attempt to stop infighting as unhappy FG TDs gather for think-in
FINE Gael TDs will be told at this week’s party think-in to focus on the Budget or run the risk of facing a general election.
Opponents of Enda Kenny had hoped the Taoiseach would face ‘a political high noon’ tomorrow over issues such as his departure date and the Apple tax controversy.
A number of Fine Gael TDs are openly claiming the Finance Minister and the Taoiseach are lame ducks who should be naming ‘their collective departure dates’.
However, Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe will warn TDs that their primary responsibility now is to ‘ensure we pass a responsible Budget for 2017’.
The minister will tell Fine Gael TDs and senators that ‘the Irish people elected their representatives to represent, to legislate and to govern. They now expect us to do our job.’
Mr Donohoe told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘There will be inevitable political tension and drama, the meetings, the negotiations, the debates. However, I am confident we will implement the resolutions and legislation necessary for the passage of the Budget.’
He added that it was ‘a time for steady as she goes’. Mr Donohoe will also warn his party that we are in a new age where economists are warning we ‘cannot take for granted the success of the political and economic systems that guide the western world’.
He will also warn that spending in 2017 at €53.2bn ‘nearly matches one of our highest ever historical points’.
In 2008, the apogee of the Bertie boom, it was €53.4bn.
Mr Donohoe will also tell TDs, and more important still his fellow ministers, that much of the planned increases for 2017 will be to pay for current commitments to citizens.
A number of other senior FG ministers have also warned the party’s fractious TDs and senators that all their attentions should be focused on the budget.
Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar will tell the think-in that when the Dáil returns, the focus should be on the legislative programme and the Budget. Mr Kenny, however, is unlikely to escape unscathed from the think-in as the dissidents are lining up an ambush. They will focus on the Apple tax controversy and also the hugely embarrassing court case taken by former minister John Perry against the party over the party’s failed attempts to keep him off the election ticket. The case ended with an embarrassing climbdown and a bill for Fine Gael of about €500,000. ‘We are going to have a full and frank discussion on issues such as Perry and Apple. Ministers are not little deities who must be obeyed at all times,’ one source said. ‘We want full disclosure on the Perry court case,’ a source said. But Cork TD Jim Daly said the meeting would have to focus instead on the broader performance of the Government. ‘We need to see that the dithering has stopped and been replaced by responsible government,’ he said.