Cowen accused of 'whitewashing the past'

In an address at the annual James Connolly Commemoration in Dublin's Arbour Hill he said Ireland's once-vibrant economy was destroyed by the reckless actions of a feckless and greedy few.

"Thousands of jobs have been lost. Homes put at risk. Businesses gone to the wall, and enormous debts foisted on the backs of generations to come," said Mr Gilmore.

"And if that were not enough, insult is piled on injury, in an attempt to rewrite the history of the past decade.

"It is a shameful exercise, from a Taoiseach who wants to whitewash the past, and who has no plan for the future."

The Taoiseach this week launched one of the staunchest defences of his economic record as former finance minister, claiming no independent body warned about the banking crisis and scale of recession before it hit.

Mr Gilmore said the comments were an excuse of self-justification from a man who he maintained stood idly by while the economy was taken over by speculators.

"What we are now told is that Brian Cowen knew nothing. He heard no evil, he saw no evil, he spoke no evil. Nobody warned him," continued Mr Gilmore.

"Little wonder, since he didn't ask too many questions."

Mr Gilmore told supporters the Labour Party today shares the same values that James Connolly, the trade unionist and socialist, had during the 1916 Rising.

"What we stand for is the idea of One Ireland," he continued.

"That in times of crisis, as in times of calm, we achieve most through our common endeavour. That as a country, we must pull together, if we want to pull through."

Union leader Jack O'Connor said the entire burden of the banking collapse has been inflicted on working people and those, young and old, who depend on public services while the wealthy have contributed little or nothing.

"Unemployment has been allowed to soar to over 13.5%, more than 430,000 people who have been told, in no uncertain terms, that they are expendable," the Siptu president said at Arbour Hill.

"Another wave of emigration has taken tens of thousands of our best and brightest young people to other shores.

"These are deliberate strategies, of course, not just the consequences of economic misfortune, and they are central to the policy of driving down wages across the economy for workers in the public and private sector alike."

Mr O'Connor claimed parties in power have placed the fate of the banks as the centre of their policies during the deepening economic crisis while Labour, and other parties of the Left, have prioritised jobs and people's homes and pensions.

"No less than the future of this society is now at stake and no better time to remember the vision of James Connolly for a united all-island economic and political solution forged in the interests its working people," he added.