Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The departure of the troika marks the beginning of the end of Ireland's greatest financial challenge. We have had to face terrible atrocities and decisions as a country to get us out of the bailout programme. Getting rid of the troika has been a national imperative since it first arrived three years ago. It formed the basis of a general election campaign and has dominated the Government's thinking and objectives ever since. However, its exit leaves a void. The economic imperative will have to be different because if the restored economic sovereignty we pursued so hard leads to no change, people will wonder what we were concerned about in the first place.

Following the troika's exit, we need to think about where we are heading with our economic freedom. We need a new economic understanding which will encompass the Government, civil society and the citizen to make sure what we put in place is different from we had previously. We need a people or a values-focused economy based on a number of facets, the first of which is the worker who gets up every day and brings his or her kids to school before going to work. He or she must be at the centre of our economic thinking. That did not happen in the past. We put all our hopes in the speculator, the developer and big businesspeople. The economy cherished them and they were put up by politicians in certain parties as the example of what we should follow. That needs to stop and we need to examine every economic decision we make. The economic model we put forward should be based on the worker. That may sound a little callous because we often have debates about people who are vulnerable and may be suffering because of cuts and resource allocations, but unless people are working and generating wealth and paying taxes, we will have nothing to redistribute to other groups.

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