Tag Archives: Lucinda Creighton

HEALTH CUTS and reduced public sector allowances for new entrants are continuing to provoke tensions in the Coalition ahead of this afternoon’s Cabinet meeting, the first since the summer break.

Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton said yesterday it was not credible for Government backbenchers to suggest the recent announcement of a €130 million cost-reduction package by the Health Service Executive was a surprise.

“Whingeing and pretending that you were surprised by budget figures that were agreed last December is not really credible,” she said in an interview with The Irish Times.

“We all went into the Dáil chamber and voted for it, including all of the members of Labour and all of the members of Fine Gael. So let’s have the courage to stand over what we voted for last December and don’t pretend that it’s a surprise that the Department of Health has to meet certain targets.”

It’s so on…

Asses will be kicked. Faces will be slapped.

*popcorn, large Sprite, jelly snakes*

Coalition tensions persist over health cuts, public allowances (Mary Minihan, Deaglán de Bréadún and Martin Wall, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

“We are all looking forward to a summer brimming with sports events from the European Championships to the London Olympics. Our hopes are high with anticipation and expectation and it is no wonder, given the talented, primed and professional athletes we are fortunate enough to have representing us.

We can learn some lessons from them. They have achieved excellence in the sporting field, not by virtue of luck or by accident, but because they are thorough in their planning, methodical in their preparations and they leave nothing to chance.

…Similarly, there is no shortcut to getting Ireland back on track. I hope that we in Government have tried to be frank and honest about that. There are plenty of opponents of the fiscal treaty who will claim that we can magic our problems away, but we cannot. We must continue in the quiet, determined way in which we have tackled this financial crisis since it began. We must work steadily and with determination towards Ireland’s recovery, and voting Yes to the treaty is an essential element of that.”

Lucinda Creighton: No Easy Solution To Ireland’s Woes But Yes Vote is Only Way To Go (Irish Times)

“In football, there is the following expression: he reads the game well. All good players read the game well. The same goes for rugby. Today, you will hear commentators say about Brian O’Driscoll that he reads the game.
This means that Drico can see where the game is going, where the next play is and how to either deal with it or seize the opportunity. In soccer, the player who reads the game knows where the ball is going next. They used to say this of Roy Keane. It is the same for all major sports.

Many years ago, I spent a summer working in Canada, where the national hero at the time was Wayne Gretzky, the brilliant ice hockey player. Gretzky was so good that, when he retired, his number – 99 – was retired from all North American professional hockey teams.

His most famous quote followed a simple question from a commentator about why he was so successful. Gretzky didn’t even think, he just responded as if it were the most simple thing in the world: “I skate to where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”

Our politicians and those who negotiate for us, whoever they are, would do well to listen to the sportsmen. Head to where the ball is going, not where it’s been.”

David McWilliams: The Game Is Only Beginning (DavidMcWilliams.ie)

Cartoon by Blower (Daily Telegraph)

Thanks Andrew Murphy

Fine Gael backbencher Peter Mathews yesterday took on his own front bench in the Dail namely Lucinda Creighton,

Peter Mathews: “When I was with the finance and public expenditure committee, meeting other committees in the Bundestag, we put to them information of which they were clearly not aware. These people are on the budgetary committee of the Bundestag, with a €300 billion budget. I put it to them that the loan losses in our banking system were 60% of our national income or GDP. If the same problem had arisen in Germany, it would be a €300 billion part of its GDP. We were being asked, silently, to bear this load, which was wrong.

I will reiterate the question asked by Deputy Mac Lochlainn. At the summit on Monday, why was the question of the unsustainability of private banking debt that has now been socialised in this country not on the agenda for discussion?

The ESRI equivalent in Germany was not aware that the three elements of debt in this economy comprised private household debt and non-financial corporate debt as well as the sovereign debt, which is the focus of the fiscal compact. Our private household debt and non-financial corporate debt is twice the size of that of Greece, which is in the emergency ICU. What is happening today is really a shame. We are boxed into the old traditions.”

Lucinda Creighton: “I accept the point Deputy Mathews makes. I absolutely appreciate there is a concern that debt sustainability was not a featured item on the agenda at the summit on Monday. However, it has been featured at numerous summits in recent months. There was a decision by Heads of Government that on this occasion the focus would be on two issues, the first being finalising the text of the fiscal compact. The Deputy may not agree with it but that is the decision they took. The other was to focus primarily on the issue of jobs, growth and exploring various ways in which the institutions of the European Union might be used to assist member states in their efforts. These include, for example, ways in which the European Investment Bank could be leveraged in order to work with member states to develop opportunities in investment and infrastructural projects and so on. That is something our Government is exploring in some detail.

The Commission proposal on project bonds, for example, is a matter the Government is discussing and specific Departments have been charged with investigating and identifying specific opportunities for Ireland. There are a number of positive outcomes from the summit. The issue of the sustainability of Ireland’s debt, as Members know, is under discussion with…”

Mathews: “It is not understood.”

Creighton: “It is under discussion. The Deputy can take issue with whether it is understood. I assume the Minister for Finance would have a different view. We are in ongoing negotiations with the troika. As the Deputy knows, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, spoke last week with the President of the ECB. That work will take a little time but it is progressing. I am very optimistic about it. I do not subscribe to all the doom and gloom.”

Mathews: “It is not doom and gloom. It is reality.”

Creighton: “Some of it is.”

Mathews: “No, it is not.”

Creighton: “There are some good news stories about the way in which Ireland has been moving much closer to recovery than either of the other two programme countries, or a number of other member states. For example, we returned to positive growth in 2011, which is something about which this Chamber seems not particularly interested. Although unemployment is a massive cause for concern for this Government, as I assume it is for all governments in Europe, there has been a small dent in it. It has fallen from 14.7% to 14.2%. The decline is very slow but it is positive and very important.”

 

Ireland Stand Up – the name seeming to conjure up that version of Irish nationalism of yore where Catholicism was an assertion of ‘Irishness’ – cannot be too well staffed. It has a pitiful number of Facebook followers and has been up and running for little more than two months. Yet, they managed to draw 55 TDs and 20 Senators, including no less than Minister for Europe Lucinda Creighton (above with Eamon Gilmore), to a meeting in Buswell’s hotel near Leinster House last week. Creighton offered her support to the group’s agenda, namely that the Irish government ought to (eventually) reverse its callous decision to nix the Irish embassy to the Holy See!

When you hear of valuable advocacy networks for prison reform; or immigrants say, failing to attract even a tenth of these numbers (let alone endorsements) at meetings in Leinster House then something is seriously awry.

 

Standing up for the Holy See (James Cussen, Politico)

(Photocall Ireland)