TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY will today launch the Fine Gael party’s annual parliamentary party think-in in Galway, as Labour holds the second day of its own sessions in Co Carlow.

Kenny will be expected to outline the government’s general plan of action for the coming months, and potentially offer hints as to where the axe may fall in December’s Budget which will have to find between €3.6bn and €4bn in new taxes and spending cuts.

Yesterday, opening his party’s own think-in in Co Carlow, Eamon Gilmore told his party that there was “no old manual of social democratic Government” to which Labour could refer in trying to manage the current circumstances – but that the coming budgets would still be among the toughest Ireland could face.

“We cannot fall back automatically on prescriptions from the past… what matters now is what works. And that will bring us to decisions that, though necessary, are outside the comfort zone of old ideas.”

He added:

If Ireland is to be the first country to emerge successfully from an IMF programme, then the present Irish Government will be the first Government in Europe to achieve that, and Labour will be the first social democratic party in Europe with responsibility for achieving that goal.

The Tánaiste assured that the Government would “level with people” and acknowledge that the task ahead of it was difficult, but that it was still “going to get on with it”.

Labour would be at the forefront of change and would act as “the engine of Government, not a brake car.”

Fianna Fáil will hold its own party think-in in Tallaght on Monday and Tuesday of next week, while Sinn Féin holds its Árd-Fheis in Belfast this weekend. All of the week’s meetings precede the return of Dáil business next Wednesday.

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