In the Eye of the Storm

Find out what Brian Cowen thinks is in store for Ireland in light of the global financial crisis and the government's unpopular decisions on medical cards and education cuts.

Jason O'Toole, 06 Nov 2008

Fintan O’Toole has accused the government of picking on pensioners and school kids. How do you answer that charge? 

That is a typical but inaccurate assessment of what the government is about. We have built up a lot of improvements in services for children – for working families with young children in school. For example, child benefits were increased by 500% since we came into office. We’ve doubled old age pensions. We’ve improved services provided to our elderly in terms of better community care programmes, community nursing and reforms in the whole nursing home area so that everyone is treated equally. Our record in these areas is very good. What we’re trying to do is sustain – to the greatest extent we can – the services we’ve built up, on the basis that we’ve less revenues now than we used to have. So, therefore there have to be some policy changes.

One of your backbenchers, Joe Behan, resigned over this fiasco. Now that the changes have been made, will he be rejoining the party?

He’s written to me in a way that suggests he’s made an irreversible decision, unfortunately. That was a big decision on his part. I’m very sorry to see him take that decision. It’s a pity that we didn’t have the opportunity to sit down and talk about it before he made up his mind. On a personal level, I wish him well. Politically speaking, the issue on which he resigned – which was the medical card issue primarily, although he mentioned other local issues – I felt was a premature decision, as I spoke on the evening news that night to state that I would address it over the following days, which I did. We have now provided for the great majority of pensioners.

A lot of people feel your credibility, as well as that of the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, has been seriously damaged because of the medical card issue.

Our political opponents would say so. There’s been plenty of name-calling going on and plenty of propagandising. That’s just superficial stuff. I’m confident in my own abilities. Obviously, I’m mindful of the fact that there are many in the public who would rather see us adopting different types of policies or would like to think that we’re living in a different world than the world we’re living in. We’re not. I’m in the very same position as other people in my position in other countries. None of them are exactly top of the popularity charts – but that’s not the issue really. I believe it’s in the public interest that we continue to see a stable and strong government in place – and implement these policies. And in due course, people can make their judgements on it. But I’m focused on the job at hand – which is to manage our way through this issue and to explain to people what’s going on and to seek their support in our effort to do so.

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