Speaking at the opening of the 9th MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal,Taoiseach Enda Kenny spoke passionately about his vision for Ireland for this year.
During his talk Mr Kenny balanced pathos and humour and managed more than a few chuckles from the audience. "I don’t know if anyone of you know what it is like to be the Taoiseach,” said Mr Kenny at one point.
He explained his point further when he recounted his entering the room filled with the 27 EU leaders and having to make his case for Ireland. “Any one who follows me in this job I advise them not to drink too much water before, because if you have go out you might be down a few billion before you are back."
Mr Kenny then added that he was ‘very happy’ with the eurozone meeting this week, because he felt there was a ‘palpable sense’ among the leaders from the EU 27 that Ireland was an example of a government and a people facing up to a series of ‘unprecedented challenges’ and yet it was making its way in meeting the conditions and circumstances that apply to the EU/IMF loan facility.
Mr Kenny spoke of the recent assessment by the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and described it similar to being stopped by the Garda on the road, "you are glad to know that your papers are in order but you are not quite sure until they are handed back to you."
"We are not in charge of our economic destiny in a way that we would like to be, in order to get back to that point we need to meet a number of challenges and obstacles ahead."
Mr Kenny added that because the case being made by Ireland and other EU countries is that the issue now is a European concern and not just a local issue, "the European circumstance now require a European response."
"We have always said that the cost of the fund was too high, that it needed greater flexibility, and that interest rates should be reduced.
"I think that the message in there for markets in the future are clearly written into the conclusions of this eurozone summit … financing will be guaranteed for the future once a country measures up to the circumstances of its particular loan facility," said Mr Kenny.
According to Mr Kenny the ministers around the cabinet have two fundamental responsibilities;
the first is to find solutions and the second is to make decisions.
“The mandate given to me was not to leave things as they were, not to sit back and hope that somebody will pass by in a ship and say they will sort all our problems out, the only ones who can sort it out are ourselves … this is not like a situation where we have been struck by a tsunami like those poor people in Japan, or earthquakes in New Zealand or famine in Africa … this is an economic challenge we face.
"Let me tell you quite bluntly, we are not going to use the downsizing of our debt burden this week to soften the difficulty that we face with our budget at the end of the year," said Mr Kenny.
“Every shop and household in the country knows that spending more than it takes in is going to get them into serious difficulty. Our country is spending 18 to 20 billion more than it is taking in and that can’t continue and won’t continue."
After what Mr Kenny described as comprehensive spending analysis across all departments, that is due to be completed by September by the government. A ‘clear view’ of what programmes have to be removed, maintained and increased will be known.
"We will tell the people that so they will know … I would like to think that the mandate given to me will be reflected in that reality as we perceive the depth and scale of the challenge."
Speaking with a great deal of pride about Ireland and the sporting achievement of some of our golfers in recent years, Mr Kenny said that he did not want to see the country divided into columns of profit and loss and stats about euro and cents. “We have a moral and a political duty to do everything humanly possible as a government to see that people get back to work and have the opportunity to do that because work as you know is not just about money, its about our sense of self respect and human dignity.”
