‘Government has six weeks before coffers start to empty’

CONCERN is growing among the Cabinet and expectant incoming Fianna Fáil Ministers that the current caretaker Government will start to run out of money in six weeks.

Sources from Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have warned that the problem is rapidly spreading beyond Social Protection into Health and a variety of semiState companies such as CIE.

One senior Fine Gael source said: ‘These are the discussions floating around Cabinet. It is not just expenditure. It is the collapse of income.

‘We are very close to the edge of political legitimacy as it is. We cannot vote in the sort of estimates required to keep Social Protection and Health going as a caretaker administration.

‘There would be a very strong case for a Presidential intervention if we tried. Certainly, the incumbent up in the Park would think so.’

Senior FF figures have warned their own party that there is just six weeks to put a government together that can borrow the necessary money.

Separately, one FG Minister cautioned: ‘There is a timebomb that is ticking, and it is ticking ever faster. If we do not have a resolution by August, we will be starting to enter the space of struggling to pay wages.’

Their concerns were echoed by another senior Fianna Fáil figure who warned his party last week: ‘There will be no money in August if we do not take action in June to finalise a government. There is a huge hole in the fiscal bucket and there is no money coming in.’ A veteran Fine Gael advisor said: ‘The really big issue is to get jobs back in areas like construction. If we get 100,000 to 150,000 people back in there it immediately takes a big chunk of taxpayers back into the living economy.’

They also warned: ‘When it comes to government formation the time has passed for Green dithering and treating government formation like some academic seminar or the MacGill summer school.

‘We need them to move or we must go elsewhere.’

Another FG TD warned: ‘If they don’t move soon there will be nothing left to spend on their bicycle lanes.’

They added: ‘Increasingly our concern with the Greens is not that we are getting 12 versions of Shane Ross but that we are getting 12 Boyd Barretts. These guys are to the left of Sinn Féin.’

‘We’re very close to the edge as it is’