Eurolink News

As Charlie McCreevy packs his bags and prepares to leave Brussels after just over five years as EU Internal Markets Commissioner, the one question he refuses to answer is where his career is headed next. The only certainty he admits to is that he’s finished with politics. ‘I know what I’m not going to do, and that’s politics,’ the former Finance Minister has said, drawing a line under a colourful 36-year stint in politics that began when he was first elected TD for Kildare in 1977.
But Mr McCreevy, recently turned 60, is far from ready to retire. ‘I think there’s a good many years left in me, and I want to do something different…Nothing is definite, but my time in accountancy has given me a feel for small business,’ he has hinted.
Looking back over his often controversial career, Mr McCreevy stands proud of his achievements and rejects any accusation that the tax-cutting approach he introduced as Minister for Finance between 1997 and 2004 encouraged an unsustainable property boom. ‘Cutting taxes has proven to be a success in galvanising economies,’ he says. ‘Look at the figures. We ran massive budget surpluses and created full employment. I set up the National Pension Reserve Fund…and reduced Ireland’s net debt from 60 per cent of GDP to less than 20 per cent.’ He is also quick to distance himself however from mistakes made by his successors in government. ‘I can’t be responsible for what’s gone on in the last six years – I wasn’t there,’ he points out. Frank and defiant to the last, both foes and friends alike agree that as Charlie McCreevy leaves the stage, both national and European politics will be a duller place without him.