Dan Boyle sends out wrong signals

Ministers will meet on Wednesday to begin discussions on how to deliver €3 billion in cuts in December’s budget.

But it looks like cracks are already appearing in the coalition with Dan Boyle wondering aloud about the public appetite for another "difficult budget". This has led to a scathing attack on the Green Party Chairman in todays editorial in the Irish Independent. Read the full article here.

This is from the article ...

"Not many of us take Senator Dan Boyle very seriously. Indeed, not many of us take his party, the Greens, seriously except on the numerous occasions when they contrive to annoy sensible people and make them regret that the party ever found a place of influence in the political system.

But regrettably or otherwise, they do have a place in the system. They hold two seats in the Cabinet. The Government depends on them for its existence. And Mr Boyle is the party chairman and finance spokesman.

So when he makes a pronouncement on an issue of the highest importance, people sit up and take notice -- at home and, more dangerously, abroad.

Those of them who have heard of Mr Boyle as a person of consequence in Irish politics will have their doubts reinforced.

But in one respect he is right. He is right to question whether "we" have the political will to stick the course. By "we" he presumably means the coalition, not the voters, who have no recourse but to throw it out of office at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime, it has a choice. It can give the people the leadership to help them through the hard times. Or it can continue to choose cowardice and incompetence on every issue from water charges to top officials' pensions."


Apparently Dan Boyle was unrepentant last night (link) about his warning that Ireland might not be able to reduce its budget deficit within the next four years. He put himself at odds with government policy, which is to to bring down the deficit in line with EU rules by 2014.

Mr Boyle had asked whether this was socially and politically possible. "Seeing that we have had three-and-a-half years of really difficult budgets, I do not see the public appetite continuing. It could be that we have neutral budgets for a period," he said.

But the Green Party gave a rapid assurance that Mr Boyle was speaking on a personal basis -- and not for the party.