President Michael D. Higgins has raised eyebrows in some circles with a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times.

The President has criticised the response of European leaders to the economic crisis and said it was time to go beyond outrage and recrimination.

According to the Constitution the President is not supposed to intervene in government matters.

He has criticised the response of European leaders and the European Central Bank (ECB) and the general European response to the debt crisis.

He says EU leaders have failed to break the link between bank and sovereign debt which he says would be an immense benefit to growth.

"It would have been of immense benefit naturally to growth, employment creation and investment if the...commitment of separating banking debt from sovereign debt had in fact been implemented. It would give you the opportunity to breathe and create growth in the economy" he told the paper.

And he called for a radical re-think of how EU leaders are handling the Eurozone crisis.

"You are either a union or you are not" he said. The President argued that there was a need for "radical economics" and a "radical rethink" of how EU leaders were handling the crisis. "The unemployment profile in Greece is different from the unemployment profile in Ireland. You need a pluralism of approaches".

In a speech to the European Parliament last month President Higgins outlined some of his concerns about Europe.

He said European citizens were threatened with an unconscious drift to disharmony and called for moral courage among its leaders.