Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

In trying to make an assessment of the merits of the European Financial Stability Mechanism, EFSM, we should begin by setting down our priorities. What are the priorities and interests of ordinary people? In so far as we are discussing the majority in this country, these priorities and interests are about the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own in getting back to work. We must do something about the situation where the most vulnerable sectors of society who bear no responsibility whatsoever for the current economic crisis are having considerable suffering, pain and misery inflicted on them. The anguish and despair are palpable for parents who have children with special needs, who are unsure whether these children will have a future equal to that of other children because of cuts in resources and the numbers of special needs assistants; for persons dependent on social welfare, and those who are disabled or have invalidity issues. The people concerned are facing cuts in their fuel allowance. Their incomes which are miserably low are being cut. These issues should dictate our priorities.

The ways by which we get people back to work, how we give them hope, how we end their suffering and provide for their basic needs and how we develop a strategy for the economy in the interests of the people are priorities any Government worthy of its name should state are its first priorities. Every proposal and suggestion put to it should be judged by how it meets these needs and priorities. Surely, that is what democratic government is about.

Nevertheless, it seems this and the previous Government, the political authorities of Europe, the EU-IMF troika and everyone else do and did not have this set of priorities. Since the crisis broke, what they have done and continue to do at every meeting and summit and in every agreement and new mechanism developed up to and including the proposed EFSM is maintain that banks and the financial system come first. They maintain this is the only realistic way to deal with the crisis and prioritise stabilising and recapitalising the banks and nursing the banking system back to health. They maintain this is the only way forward and in our best interests. They further maintain that anyone who says anything different is being unrealistic.

It is nearly three years since the crisis broke. Is it not time to assess the effectiveness of that approach? Is it not time to ask whether it has worked; whether the priority of nursing the banks back to health and developing opaque mechanisms in Europe designed to bail them out is working, and whether this is helping in responding to the basic needs of ordinary citizens both here and elsewhere? If one puts that question, is it not obvious that it is not helping to make things better, that it is not improving our prospects for economic growth or recovery; that according to every serious indicator, things are getting worse, not better, and that the crisis is getting deeper and spreading, that the contagion is becoming more virulent with every week that passes and that every new agreement EU leaders come up with and every great new plan or stratagem introduced finally to contain and deal with the problem and put us back on the road to recovery, unravels within hours or days? We stumble from one crisis to another and, meanwhile, the ordinary people continue to suffer, the austerity continues to rain down on them, the jobs continue to be massacred, and it just gets worse and worse.

It is in this context that we must ask whether it is a good idea to ram through what is a sort of monster-sized, souped-up version of the same bailout strategy and mechanisms that have been deployed for the past two or three years. Having looked at a situation where the priority of bailing out the banks for two and half years has failed, we are now going to put together a monster-sized bailout for the banks - a pan-European mechanism for bailing them out to an enormous degree - yet we think it is going to make things better when every move in this direction has made things worse.

Some of the provisions of this mechanism are quite extraordinary and amount to nothing less than a political coup d'état, a usurping of the democratic rights of the citizens of this and other European countries, and of national parliaments, to decide their priorities, economic strategies and economic and social objectives. Some of the provisions of European Stability Mechanism, ESM, are indicative of how undemocratic, how rotten, is the direction Europe is taking, although our Government is going along with it. For example, Article 27 of the ESM Treaty grants immunity from every form of judicial process, with no legal accountability whatsoever to citizens. Article 30 grants full legal immunity to all ESM governors and staff, and states that all employees will be free from national income taxes and will only have to pay an internal tax for the benefit of the ESM on salaries and emoluments paid by the ESM. It is unbelievable.

This is an enabling treaty to undermine the basic rights of citizens in countries across Europe, as well as of Parliaments and of representative democracy, and all to bail out the banks. It is not working. The Government has always challenged us by saying "We do not like this; we wish we did not have to do it but it is reality; in any event, you, who criticise us, have no alternative". I put it to the Government that we have an alternative. It might be worth the time of the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, and other Government members to read the UN Conference on Trade and Development report produced in recent weeks, which lambasted the policies of austerity and of focusing on bank bailouts, and stated that what was needed was stimulus and that the policies being pursued by Governments such as the Irish Government, as well as the European authorities, were moving in the opposite direction to the one needed to ensure economic growth and recovery. They argued for stimulus, for social transfers, for subsidies and for investment in the economy in order to put people back to work.

Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, told us the deficit this year, if we walk away from the EU-IMF deal, will be €15 billion. He acknowledged that this included interest repayments on the loans, which I suspect is some €4 billion or €5 billion, although the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, might be able to confirm the figure. Therefore, the deficit gap we have to make up is approximately €10 billion or €11 billion. If we consider that 350,000 people have lost their jobs as a result of the recession, and that they probably cost us the best part of-----

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