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A WAR OF WORDS has erupted between communications minister Pat Rabbitte and Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman Michael McGrath over plans to sell State assets.
McGrath has accused Rabbitte of giving a “completely false account” of the deal reached by the previous government under the terms of the original EU-IMF deal and its demands for the sale of state assets.
“We came in on a memorandum of understanding in 2010 by the previous government”, Rabbitte said, “which committed the State to a programme” of sales.
“If you were to ask me, I don’t like being in this position at all – but that’s the position we’re in,” Rabbitte – who as energy minister has already announced the sale of a minority stake in ESB – said on RTÉ Radio 1′s Morning Ireland.
“In the very first Memorandum of Understanding, negotiated by officials and with no involvement by the then-government – which seemed to be in complete dysfunction at the time – it was a requirement… that the Irish government would dispose of State assets.”
In a statement this morning, McGrath took issue with this declaration – saying this “explicit claim that the last Government agreed to sell €5 billion of state assets is simply wrong”.
“The commitment to engage in an ambitious asset disposal programme was made by him and his Government,” McGrath said – pointing to an admission of this by Michael Noonan in October:
We are not resiling from any matter. No figure was included in the original memorandum of understanding. We included a figure of €2 billion in the programme for Government and intend to realise that sum. However, we are obliged to negotiate with the troika on what we may do with the proceeds of the sale of State assets. [...]I am in favour of and welcome the sale of State assets. There is no blame attached.
McGrath said that not only was the sale of assets “a Fine Gael-Labour agenda, but the mess surrounding what the proceeds can be used for is entirely of their own making.
“It was Fine Gael and Labour who agreed to use the proceeds to pay down debt,” he said.
“Since that day, they have been trying to spin that ‘a significant proportion’ of proceeds could be used for job creation – but as recently as this morning Pat Rabbitte, the spinner-in-chief, was unable to confirm a single euro for investment.”
The original memorandum of understanding referred to a review of State assets already being undertaken by the then-government, but did not explicitly commit the Irish government to any sales.
Yesterday’s update of the memorandum formally asserted that the government would be able to devote some of the proceeds from the sale of assets to investing in job creation.
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I don’t care what “deal” was reached under the previous government, nor do I believe any money would be put aside for “job creation” from the sale of state assets!
Ireland is not for sale. Forget about selling Ireland’s assets to pay back unsecured bondholders Rabbitte. It is worse than selling “family silver”. Whose “family silver” generates income. Forget it. It’s the crappiest policy ye have – but then rabbits make a lot of that…
Isn’t it ironic that rabitte is the communications minister of a left wing party. Never has there been such an arrogant Molly coddled condescending eejit with such a poor grip of decent communication who always sounds like he’s talking down to his pupils when addressing us mere mortals.
Diarmaid! You must have been living on the moon for the last 12 months, if you still think Labour are a left wing party!!
Centre left, whatever, they are sticking to the Croke park agreement when it isn’t working, left or not, they’re clearly morons!
There’s an insinuation there Diarmaid that “left” policies are moronic. Please retract immediately before this crazy capitalist regimen collapses on top of you. :-)
Ah Reada, you’re too easy all together ;) Alot of very intelligent and competent people are left wingers, however, I can assure you none of them reside in the Labour party ranks, you only have to look at their bluffer of a leader to figure that out ;) Bluffers and Spoofers the lot of them.
A thumb up to that one Diarmaid. ;)
No matter what promises ff made regarding state assets.. New government… New ideas… Stand on your own 2 feet mr Rabbitte and co.. NOT FOR SALE..
well am i right in thinking that part of the pre election promises! or crap whatever you want to call it …was full of the fine gael/labour spin that they were going to do things their way and were going to renegotiate everything that the last crowd of fools had agreed to….. and has anyone else noticed that since then all we have been hearing is..”we inherited this and that from fianna fail so our hands are tied” or it’s “your fault” that we are in this mess… i don’t know about anyone else but that isn’t what i voted to hear….i was expecting the sound of fanfare as our new government marched to meeting with the troika to change everything and take back our country from the robbery that we are suffering…. it seems now that by the end of this governments term we wont even have a pot to call our own to piss in….
Sorry Gavan & it’s nothing to do with your article but I got bored halfway through reading this because it seems most of these politicians have been around way too fuc*ing long & really have nothing of interest to bring to the party anymore.
I can tak ethis stuff when it’s spoken by Sinn Fein or the ULA, but I find it loathsome to hear it coming out of McGrath’s mouth. Has he ever said sorry?
If only we could tax everything FG have inherited! These guys really have nothing to offer anymore. That’s not being negative that’s being realistic.
Pat Rabbitte is the master of obfuscation but he can’t spin his way out of this one.
His party negotiated a programme for government commitment to sell off €2bn of our state assets.
They did this with no help from the troika.
FG has been advocating selling off state assets for years and they made a deal with Labour to do it. All this talk of the troika is classic red herring politics.
The first IMF agreement only committed to examining the possibility of sales, when Noonan got his hands on Finance this turned into a definite target.
If Rabbitte wants to blame someone for forcing him to sell state assets he should look closer to home and his cabinet colleagues – he must have known, going into Government with Fine Gael would lead here eventually.
So let me get this straight. FF gov suggested selling state assets in principle, but didn’t commit to which or how much. FG gov agrees an amount in Troika negotiations. So FG say it’s not their fault, FF made vague agreement and FF say it’s not their fault, they never agreed to anything specific.
SIGH.
Incidentally, did Noonan *really* use the verb ‘resiling’?
Yes, pretty much sums it up.
He stood on his neck and held up his old paw,
Three cheers for Old Ireland said Master McGrath.
Again IMF and Trioka and other foriegn EU countries are robbing us Blind, first the Banks Bail out and free low percentage hand out bailing out other countries like USA and Britan, Germany, France and Dutch, Swedan, now they want are Irish assets Properties that the Taxpayers have bought and paid for, and this Government is willing to sell us out, i dont think so, why are we not out fighting against this on the streets and why is it that some cowardless Irish no good wasters wont come out unto the streets and fight back and take control of our Irish Assets and the Austerity Fiscal Reform of House hold Tax Charge, it is Sad to say that the Irish people are a Bunch of Cowardless morans, they cannot see what the Leader politicians and Government is doing to our Country by Destroying our Economy and Putting us in more Crisis and Depths and to ruins of the Celtic Tiger.
Makes me Bloody sick, Rita cahill
Rita if we had more like you our beautiful island would be so much better off. Im an old (er) woman & I cannot for the life of me understand why people are not out on the streets demanding jobs and their human rights. Back when my generation were young we demanded civil rights for our brothers and sisters north of the border and for the Afroamericans. We protested against the decimation of Wood Quey. We fought against Censership. We fought for the right to use contraception. Sometimes it is right to take to the streets and peacefully demand our civil rights
You’ll only see real protests in Ireland when the Goverment is forced to tear up Croke park! Late spring or early summer I’d say!
Rommel none of the political parties have nothing to offer the people , if its corruption you want vote for this goverment or the previous one that is if we still have a country come the next elections
Rabbitte is one of those relic from Ireland’s murky political past and is well past his sell by date. Pat do the country a favour and retire. God knows you have pocketed enough of our hard earned incomes over all of those wasted years you spent doing little but feathering your own nest.
We are all in the toilet, and when you are you have to sell off lots of goodies and just hope the day will come when you can buy them back. We better first decide if selling everything is even going to be enough or should we just default now. We voted in the government who were supposed to look after the shop but, as I say, it’s now a toilet. Anyone want to buy some hardly use bathroom fittings?
Buying them back will not be an option, plus you don’t even get what they’re worth in a fire sale.
They are equally complicit, f’n carpet baggers.
Sell the lot. The private sector.will make them work better.
have your say