Lenihan says he did not interfere in FG briefing

MINISTER FOR Finance Brian Lenihan denied he had interfered in a briefing his officials gave to Opposition TDs on the economy.

He was responding to Fine Gael spokesman Michael Noonan, who claimed, during sharp exchanges, that the Minister had behaved “disgracefully”.

Mr Lenihan said if Mr Noonan spoke to the officials involved, he would find there was no such direction.

Mr Noonan said Mr Lenihan’s officials had told Fine Gael Oireachtas representatives that the correction being sought was €7 billion for 2011.

“The officials withdrew that figure afterwards under political pressure from the Government, including the Minister for Finance,” he added. “I will repeat this, inside and outside the House, and take on any of them any day.”

Mr Noonan said the Minister should not have put pressure on his civil servants, adding that the Fine Gael representatives had gone to the department on the basis that the information would not be filtered through the political side.

“We found out, subsequently, that it was being filtered by him and his office because it was he who authorised the press statement that rebutted my figure, not the secretary general of the department,” he said.

Mr Lenihan said there were sensitive matters involved and his officials had outlined three different scenarios to Mr Noonan.

“When it was put to him that they preferred one, he referred to body language as the basis for his conviction,” the Minister said.

Mr Noonan denied this.

Mr Noonan said he had been told categorically what the adjustment was, while Mr Lenihan again insisted there was no political pressure exerted.

Earlier, Mr Noonan asked if the Minister recalled the “infamous meeting” in Galway where Mr Lenihan had outlined a fiscal correction of €3 billion.

It transpired, said Mr Noonan, that the Minister was forming a view at that time that he would have to double the figure, but he had not told anybody.

Mr Lenihan said forecasts were just forecasts, adding that the figure referred to in Galway was a minimum estimate and agreed with the European Commission.

Separately, Labour’s Pat Rabbitte urged the Taoiseach to call a general election, claiming that the Dáil resembled the “last days of the Roman Empire”.

He suggested it would be better for the Taoiseach “to get into his car, go to the Áras and dissolve the Dáil, and let us return some certainty and confidence to the governance of this country”.

Brian Cowen said the Government was determined to bring forward the four-year plan and the budget. He added that there was a “divergence of policy” emerging on the Opposition benches.

Mr Rabbitte accused the Taoiseach of doing awful damage to people’s morale. Mr Cowen said morale was being damaged by those exaggerating the weaknesses of the economy and making no effort whatever to favour the national interest.