Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour)

I wish to speak against the Private Members' motion because it contains an inherent contradiction. On the one hand, the Technical Group would have this House instruct the Minister for Finance, as the controlling shareholder in the covered banks, to adopt a policy of using whatever emergency measures are deemed necessary to reduce the unsustainable debt burden placed on mortgage holders and, on the other hand, to ensure the means used minimise the burden on the taxpayer and ensure householders can contribute fully to our national recovery. This side of the House agrees it is essential to the recovery of the State that householders can contribute fully to it but we must not provide that they do so in a way that further burdens taxpayers with debt.

Most of us in this House agree wholeheartedly on some of the concerns raised by the Technical Group. Deputy Finian McGrath criticised the lack of members of the Government parties in the Chamber. Unfortunately, he did not hang around long enough to hear any of us speak or the other side of the argument. Notwithstanding this, I commend him on indicating his concern on the need for equality and social justice which is shared by Members on this side of the House. I fail to see, however, how it would contribute to equality and social justice if taxpayers were burdened with further debt, which is effectively what is being proposed by the Technical Group.

The Technical Group proposes in a rather non-technical manner - I have yet to hear a single proposal from it, other than a reiteration of the concerns shared by everybody in the House - that we can somehow magically write off the debt as if it would have no consequences, but it would have consequences because, as those of us on this side are sorely aware, the banks, in particular the pillar banks, require capitalisation to ensure they can again play the role banks play in modern economies. They can lend money in the economy to allow businesses to acquire the credit they need to survive on a day-to-day basis and people to buy houses from property developers such as Deputy Mick Wallace who has told us 50% of those who acquired properties from him are now in negative equity. He proposes a system of Houdini economics in which we could all fly clear of the decisions made. Everyone who took out a mortgage did so in the belief he or she could repay it.

Those of us on this side of the House are fully cognisant of the fact that economic circumstances in the State have changed dramatically. It is for that reason the Minister for Finance has outlined in considerable detail the Government's proposals and the requirements of lending institutions to ensure account will be taken of the changed circumstances. However, Deputy Mick Wallace pointed to Eamon de Valera who represented County Clare long before I did and spoke about him refusing to pay back the land annuities as if somehow this was a magic solution without consequences. It was not without consequences. First, de Valera's actions led to a land war, as well as an economic war, between the State and its major trading partner which arguably crippled our biggest market for 20 years. Second, de Valera took these actions in a very different world from the one in which we live. It was a world in which the State could exist in splendid isolation from its trading partners. That is not the case today. We have to exist in a modern world in which international finance and international agreements made by the State must be fulfilled, including the bank guarantee which my colleagues in the Labour Party opposed and which the Government Deputy Finian McGrath supported brought forward. Each of us is suffering the consequences and every taxpayer is shouldering the burden of that guarantee. I propose that taxpayers should not be further burdened and that the weakest and most vulnerable should not be saddled with further taxes.

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