FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin has said that the last government did not “play politics with the crisis” and “did what was right for the country” despite his party suffering unprecedented losses at the ballot box in February.
In an interview with the Jeff Randall Live programme on Sky News, Martin discussed the ongoing eurozone debt crisis and said it was crucial that the European economy recovered in order for Ireland’s export-driven growth to continue.
He said the current government was continuing the policies put in place by the previous administration of which he was a member as Foreign Affairs minister.
He said this was the “correct pathway” to coming out of the crisis:
They are continuing the fundamental pillars of the last government’s policy on banking, public finances, and on the export economy and that is the correct pathway to coming out of this current crisis.
Martin criticised the European Central Bank (ECB) for expecting Ireland to carry “too much of a burden” in relation to bank debt as well as the current government for not changing any of the “pillars” of the former government’s banking policy but he attributed this to the ECB’s stance on the issue.
In relation to the Fianna Fáil wipeout at the last election where the party lost an unprecedented 57 seats in the Dáil, he said the party did what was right for the country irrespective of the consequences.
He said:
The last government did not play politics with the crisis. We did not play electoral politics with it, we just went straight ahead and did what was right for t he country.
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