TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has confirmed that the Economic Management Council will meet today to discuss the budget adjustment but brushed off suggestions that the council makes all decisions for government.

Kenny was responding to a question from Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams who pushed him to make a commitment that Budget 2014 would not “add to the pain and hardship” of families already struggling.

“Lower and middle income families have no more left to give, austerity is not working for them,” Adams said.

The Taoiseach confirmed that the ECM, which consists of himself, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin, is due to meet today.

However he was keen to stress that any insinuation that the four-man council, is in charge of all decisions is “a myth”.

“It is used by people who want to put forward propositions that there is some kind of autocratic, dictatorial situation here,” he told the Dáil. He added that the government has a “collective responsibility” for issues, including Budget 2014, and that the Cabinet meets in full to discuss them.

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