Another Rift Duly Noted as Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen at loggerheads

Ian Kehoe in this morning’s Sunday Business Post on the An Bord Snip report (not online yet):

The Bord Snip report will be given to minister fo finance Brian Lenihan this week. He plans to bring it to Cabinet the following week. Lenihan’s preference is to publish the report despite growing tension between his department and the department of the Taoiseach.

It has been rumoured in Leinster House for quite a while that relations between An Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance are frosty – the desired path of Brian Lenihan is – against allegedly – increasingly frustrated by Cowen’s political instincts.

The rift began around the first and second emergency budgets and beyond that there is lots of rumour and little substance. It is certainly worth noting, however, in the wake of Cowen’s attempted defence of the economy under the Ahern/Cowen era.

Coupled with that is the political hot potato of the An Bord Snip report – a report designed to kick cuts to touch. Yet with all the time they bought they failed to strategise how to manage the report to implementation. This is scandalous considering that Colm McCarthy was in the chair and the report would thus pull no punches. Instead we have this messy handling of ‘will we publish? Before summer? Will it affect Lisbon? Will it kill the government?’ when they should ask ‘will this report usefully inform debate between citizens, politicians and commentators over the summer and during the budget process?’.

It looks like they expected all the crap to be over once the An Bord Snip report came back – they could pick one or two and cast it aside – like the commission on taxation report. However both are now the political touchstones for the next move. They are the yardstick that almost all commentators will use to figure out how government has done (for right or wrong) and thus require management and thought on all sides. Instead we have government going back into its shell, likely to defer a political timebomb until budget time and another 6-10 months of mess follow.

Factor into this a rift between Cowen and Lenihan – such as it is – and you have a nasty looking winter coming. Best prepare the ground now, less of this ‘tough decisions’ nonsense and more of the fact based analysis. Fat chance.