The former Taoiseach and Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has revealed that one of his biggest regrets during his time in charge was that over a quarter of a million people lost their jobs during the economic downturn.
Mr Cowen who has rarely spoken about his political past since he stepped down as Taoiseach back in 2011 made his comments during his address to delegates at the National University of Ireland this week .
The former Fianna Fáil leader who was given the prestigious honour of a law doctorate in recognition of his role in Irish politics told the onlooking forum that although unavoidable cuts to public expenditure were ultimately necessary to Ireland’s future economic success, he said he still has deep regrets about a situation that seen so many hard working people left unemployed by a costly economic downturn that was highly unfortunate.
Mr Cowen told the forum: “The greatest hardship of the recession was the loss of employment for so many of our people which is something which I deeply regret.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand of our two million workforce lost jobs, the vast majority in construction and related industries and in retail.”
“We knew that the required action would understandably be more unpopular than almost any policies in recent Irish history and that this threatened the survival of the Government and our hopes of election.”
“However, we also know that to avoid taking the decisions would mean that future recovery could be put off by decades.”