Same old Fianna Fáil – Harris

Fine Gael TD for Wicklow and Minister for State at the Department of Finance,  Simon Harris, has said that this weekend’s Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis proves it’s “the same old Fianna Fáil. The party has no vision and promotes the disastrous high tax, high spend policies of old. They would throw away our hard won economic recovery given half the chance.

“Clearly Fianna Fáil got a bit touchy when criticised for having no policies. In response they opted to rush through six half baked policies in 13 days. These include, a “new” document on health, which on closer examination is actually their old policy to maintain the two-tier health system and increase spending; and an ill thought through child care plan, which would do nothing to encourage quality standards in the sector.

“One of their own senior TDs, John McGuinness, has this weekend admitted that Fianna Fáil “rushed out policies” ahead of its Ard Fheis. He also revealed that decisions are made by three or four non-elected people in Fianna Fáil headquarters, which is a far cry from the grassroots party it claims to be.

“In his speech last night Mícheál Martin gave a masterclass in populism, promising billions of euros in spending. Fianna Fáil had 101 Ard Fheis motions calling for the restoration and reversal of all sorts of measures, most of which Fianna Fáil introduced in the first place. These are policies which would seriously jeopardise the public finances overnight and destabilise the economic recovery. Just three of the measures would cost the State in the region of €7 billion. That’s quite a spending spree. Fianna Fáil is clearly still clueless about how to manage the public finances. It’s no surprise considering it’s still the same old faces from the period when they destroyed the Irish economy, subjecting thousands of Irish people to years of hardship.

“It is also interesting to note that the attitude and ethos of old Fianna Fáil is still going strong. This weekend we heard a Fianna Fáil candidate for Vice President of the party say that the infamous Galway tent fundraiser was ‘among the most transparent, undertaken by any political party, on the island of Ireland. Is this really the kind of politics we want to go back to, now that this Government has all but banned corporate donations?

“Thankfully we are now seeing an upturn in the economy and the Fine Gael Labour Government is overseeing sustainable growth and the beginnings of prosperity once more. We are focused on spreading the economic recovery to all regions of the country and we are reducing tax to ensure that everyone has a little more in their pocket . By contrast Fianna Fáil voted against our income tax cuts in the budget.

“300,000 jobs were lost in the last 3 years of the disastrous Fianna Fáil led Government. With 90,000 jobs added under this Government since the launch of the Action Plan for Jobs, we have a plan to restore full employment by 2018 and ensure a bright  future for the country that Fianna Fáil almost destroyed.”