Ireland began two nervous weeks of political maneuvering yesterday as the government dares the opposition to block an austerity budget on which a multibillion-euro EU-IMF bailout is riding.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen defied mounting pressure to quit on Monday, saying he would stay in office until parliament passed the budget, then call an early election.
Public anger at his handling of Ireland’s economic and banking crisis has only grown since he announced the bailout and his chances of passing the budget fell dramatically when two independent members of parliament said they were likely to withhold their support.
PHOTO: EPA
However, Cowen said the national interest required that he press on to unveil a promised four-year austerity package today and next year’s budget on Dec. 7.
The government is expected to announce that it will cut the minimum wage, slash social welfare spending, reduce the number of public employees and add a new property tax and higher income taxes in a package intended to slash 6 billion euros (US$8.14 billion) off next year’s budget and 15 billion euros off the annual budget by 2014.
Trade unions have warned that the austerity plan could provoke civil unrest: A student demonstration over planned fee increases turned violent this month and unions have organized a march to protest at the planned measures on Saturday in Dublin.
“We have entered into discussions with European partners on the basis that we are going to implement a budget that will have a 6 billion euro adjustment,” Cowen told a news conference after emergency talks with his Cabinet. “We believe that there’s a clear duty on all members of Dail Eireann [parliament] to facilitate the passage of these measures in the uniquely serious circumstances in which we find ourselves.”
As EU and IMF negotiators thrash out details of the rescue package, Theresa Reidy, politics lecturer at University College Cork, said Cowen’s Fianna Fail party seemed to be planning to cajole the opposition into abstaining on the budget.
“What we will see in the next fortnight is growing pressure on the opposition parties for the sake of political stability to abstain on the major votes,” she said.
Both the main opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, who are likely to come to power in a coalition after next year’s election, had demanded that an election take place before the budget and seemed unlikely to fall in line soon, if at all.
“The Taoiseach [prime minister] thinks he has a majority so let him go ahead and exercise his majority,” Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said. “Do you seriously think he is looking for our support? I don’t think so. I have no idea what’s going to be in the budget ... There is a [Fine Gael] front bench meeting tomorrow and we will consider whether we will put down a vote of no confidence.”
The Irish Times reported yesterday that Cowen had called Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore late on Monday night to offer to make the financial advice underpinning the budget available to them.
The Times said it understood that both opposition leaders reiterated their desire for immediate parliamentary dissolution.
Analysts say most Irish people, who have endured two years of austerity and recession and now face four more years of cuts on foreign lenders’ terms, would prefer an immediate election.
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