Workers Party councillor Davy Walsh (Waterford), has said that the Governor of the Central Bank should concentrate on his own job rather than trying to steer government policy further in the direction of public service cuts.

Cllr. Walsh was responding to comments by the bank’s governor Mr. John Hurley who in publishing the Central Bank’s annual report for 2008 today had called on the government to avoid tax increases and to concentrate on spending cuts, particularly in the public sector, as a means of riding out the current financial crisis.

 “It was on Mr. Hurley’s watch as Governor of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority that the banking sector in this country lent itself into severe crisis and precipitated the greatest financial disaster that this State has seen in its 90 year history.  Despite engaging in reckless lending practices, particularly in the construction area, not one bank was warned that it was doing wrong and not one bank was threatened that its banking licence could be removed.   In fact in any other country serious questions would have been asked and heads would have rolled”, said Cllr. Walsh.

“It is not the job of the Governor of the Central Bank to set public policy and Mr. Hurley needs to be reminded of what his role is. He is a civil servant, not a policy maker and not an advocate of the banks or the private sector.  If he cannot see this then maybe he is in the wrong job”.

“There is no justification for any further cuts in public services.  They are at breaking point already and the public sector, which has been the engine of the economy since the foundation, still has the potential to get this country moving again if only it were allowed to do so free from the interference of people like Mr. Hurley who want to regulate the public sector to death while removing all meaningful regulation from the private sector with inevitable results like we have already seen in the banking sector”, said the Workers Party Councillor.

Issued 14th July 2009