Irish bailout triggers election

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said yesterday he would call a general election in the New Year once Parliament passes a crucial budget at the centre of an international bailout.

It could take several weeks for the budgetary process to be completed and Mr Cowen would then have to formally dissolve Parliament and set an election date, meaning an election may not be held until February or March.

Mr Cowen, who entered a coalition government with the Green Party in 2008, bowed to calls from its disgruntled junior partner to call an election in the wake of Ireland accepting a bailout worth up to €90 billion.

The Prime Minister said the debt-ridden country’s priority must be to pass a crucial six-billion-euro budget on December 7.

“It is my intention at the conclusion of the budgetary process, with the enactment of the necessary legislation in the New Year, to then seek the dissolution of Parliament,” Mr Cowen told a news conference.

“I’m saying that it is imperative for this country that the budget is passed,” he added.

“It’s very important for people to understand that any further delay in this matter in fact weakens this country’s position.”

After a week insisting it did not require help, the government caved in on Sunday and requested assistance from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, making it the second eurozone nation after Greece to be bailed out this year.

The decision triggered a day of drama in Dublin yesterday.

Green Party leader John Gormley, whose party has six seats in Parliament, called on Mr Cowen to name a date for the country to go to the polls, saying the Irish people needed “political certainty” after being “misled and betrayed”. Mr Gormley said that in the meantime his party would support the government in getting the emergency budget through Parliament.

Mr Cowen confirmed the Greens were prepared to support “the important work that this government has to undertake in the coming weeks and months”.

The main opposition Fine Gael party said the people of Ireland had “absolutely no confidence” in the government, which had a mandate to run to 2012.

Mr Cowen’s popularity had plummeted to an all-time low of 11 per cent in November, even as his government was saying there was no need to accept outside help.

Already his party faces a by-election on Thursday in the northern constituency of Donegal South-West which it is likely to lose.