Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If one wants to hear revisionism, one should listen to what Deputy Burton stated here today.

Despite that other media-fest last summer after the European meeting that the Tánaiste told us was a game-changer, all that has happened is that our unpayable and unfair banking debt has been turned into sovereign debt, but the much-praised European Stability Mechanism will not step in to save us. We are faced with dealing on the international markets to pay our huge banking debt, and the stimulus for the economy that we need if we are to genuinely turn the corner towards exiting the recession is nowhere to be seen. The youth guarantee has been allocated a mere €14 million, despite figures showing that over 70% of emigrants are in their 20s when they leave us. The number of young people who are leaving us is staggering.

There is much more work to be done if we are to regain our economic sovereignty. Our alternatives are aimed at reducing the deficit fairly and in a way that will allow us to start rebuilding the economy. Banking debt should never have been the priority, and the focus on it created a nightmare for so many working people in the State. The economy must be stimulated to create real jobs based on indigenous resources, not the kind of job that can be whipped away at the whim of a multinational company which has no affinity with or loyalty to this country.

Sinn Féin recognises that the banking debt is a noose around our necks and that progress towards economic recovery will not come until it is restructured and reduced. The Government has not stood up and defended us or demanded retroactive recapitalisation of banking debt. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, claimed here in the Dáil today that he cannot raise the issue unless it is on the agenda. Why are we not getting this on the agenda? We are leaving the programme, but we are left with a terrible legacy of debt and damage caused to our people by austerity which will take generations of progressive, energetic government to undo.

Deputy McLellan and I sat here listening to Deputy Burton talking about the bailout and about what would have happened if we had defaulted or burned the bondholders. She forgets her own programme for Government. She forgets what the Labour Party said to the Irish people - that it would burn the bondholders - yet she stated here that the economy would have collapsed if the Government had done so. It was complete revisionism from the Labour leadership, but when one sits on this side of the House and has my knowledge of the Labour leadership, one knows that "revisionism" is a word they are well used to.

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