DUBLIN: As Ireland's election campaign heats up, the prospects of success in a battle to ease the terms of a massive EU-IMF bailout have become a key issue, even as Brussels insists it is non-negotiable.
Irish people are shell-shocked by the rapid boom to bust that has shattered the one-time Celtic Tiger economy and saddled the country with tens of billions of euros of debt that may take generations to repay.
To a humiliated nation, the opposition parties are holding out the hope that they can re-negotiate the terms of the 85 billion euro ($115 billion) bailout package if they gain power after the February 25 vote.
Five days before the election was called, Enda Kenny, leader of the centre-right Fine Gael and the firm favourite to be the next prime minister, travelled to Brussels.
Kenny said he told EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso that he planned to renegotiate the deal, particularly the interest rate, if elected to lead what in November became the second eurozone country to accept emergency help.
"Even with a very strong programme for sorting out our difficulties at home, our people still face serious challenges dealing with components in this package," Kenny said.
He is rightly betting on the issue being a vote winner -- a poll last month found 82 percent want the bailout renegotiated.
Parties are offering solutions to the country's 3.2 million voters ranging from the unlikely option of ordering out the European Union and International Monetary Fund and going it alone, to seeking "a fairer deal" from its EU partners.
Prime Minister Brian Cowen's centrist Fianna Fail government is expected to be the first administration turfed out of office as a result of the eurozone crisis, with polls showing that Fine Gael will lead the next government.
Voters are starting to feel the pinch from the tax hikes and cost-slashing measures in December's harsh austerity budget.
Cowen's budget adjustment this year is six billion euros -- part of a four-year recovery plan which aims to save 15 billion euros.
Candidates are meeting the full force of the hostility to the bailout terms and the question of why taxpayers have to pay for the mistakes of bankers as they canvas door-to-door.
An IMF review last week appeared to recognise there are difficulties, saying that while the public response to the bailout has remained favorable "a lingering domestic perception of inequitable burden sharing persists."
There is particular anger that EU funds are being lent to Ireland at a much higher interest rate than the bloc itself is borrowing them for.
The centre-left Labour party, which is expected to join a ruling coalition with Fine Gael, wants to extend the terms of the bailout by a year to 2016 and to achieve "fair and realistic terms for the Irish people".
At the launch of his party's manifesto on Friday, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the bailout deal as it stands would "prevent the Irish economy from growing".
He said there was a general consensus among international experts that the agreement would "cripple" the Irish economy.
The republican Sinn Fein is offering the most radical solutions for the economy and the bailout, although it has little chance of being elected.
It wants no further drawdown of IMF/EU funding, the reversal of many budget cuts and the "burning" of bondholders who lent to reckless banks whose lending plunged Ireland into economic purgatory.
But Bloxham stockbrokers sounded a warning to politicians on Friday about their anti-European rhetoric."Throwing down ultimatums to Brussels and rubbishing 'Frankfurt's way' might win votes... but it could make life difficult for the next government and cement anti-EU sentiment as a potent political force in a country with a history of putting the brakes on EU ambitions," its analysts said in a note.
The stockbroker said that with the interest rate on the IMF's portion of the loan tied to a fixed formula, opposition parties are focusing their ire on the EU, which at Germany's insistence added a three-percent margin on the rate it is charging for 45 billion euros worth of loans.
"However, giving voters false hope about how much Ireland could save from a reduction in the EU bailout interest rate may come back to haunt both parties and hasten a new government's early demise," Bloxham said.
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