Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will spend the limited time available to me speaking about something not in the exit arrangements but which should have been - the issue of legacy debt. All Deputies have received a flood of e-mails from people affected by legacy debt because a Private Members' motion on the issue will be brought before the House next week. The volume of e-mails indicates a tremendous sense of people having been wronged and a palpable sense of anger that the issue has not been addressed. We are exiting the programme and there is no mention of it.

The story being told is that we are out of the trees and that other than having to deal with the public deficit, all future budgetary measures as part of the austerity programme will be aimed at tackling the need to pay for public services. That is not accurate and misrepresents the position. It overlooks entirely the reasons the austerity programme was introduced in the first place. It is true there would be issues regarding the deficit in public spending in the context of any economic downturn, but this is something with which we have been dealing for the past 80 years, as have other democratic states. What is not being talked about is the fact that not only as the economic downturn made greatly worse and partly caused by the type of speculators connected to Anglo Irish Bank but also that the debt of Anglo Irish Bank and other banks has added massively to the burden being imposed on the people of the State.

It is dishonest in the extreme to claim, as some are doing, that the cuts being imposed and the extra taxes being raised from struggling households are necessary to pay for public services.

The fact is that the measures have been enormously magnified by the taking on and paying off of bank debts. We will continue to strongly urge that no further repayments be made. It will also be the case, as indicated by the troika, that the IMF will continue to exercise a role in monitoring and, to a large degree, framing the economic and financial policies of this and future Irish Governments. This will certainly ensure that the ideology of privatisation and curtailment of public services and investment will continue. In that context, I recall a promise to the effect that the Government was to create a new company involving a merger of Coillte and Bord na Móna. I also recall a promise to the effect that €1 billion in investment funding would be made available for this enterprise. I suspect that the troika have let it be known that they are opposed to any such public entity and that what will now happen is that a report on the proposed merger of Coillte and Bord na Móna will be compiled. I doubt the latter constitutes a major public investment programme in renewable energy.

Despite the spin surrounding the exit from the bailout, unless there is a clear change of direction on the part of the State all we can look forward to is more of the same. We need investment, including public investment in indigenous sectors such as energy. It is in such sectors that the potential to stimulate overall growth in the economy and create jobs exists.

My final point relates to democracy. We are supposed to live in a democratic Republic. If a referendum were put to the people tomorrow as to whether the Irish State should repay the outstanding promissory notes, I have no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of people in this country would vote "No". In a democracy, the job of a elected politicians is to represent the views and interests of those who voted them into office. The current Government is in place because it promised to do things differently from the previous lot. However, it has not kept that promise. It is arrogant to assume that the troika, the economic management council, EMC, and the Cabinet know better than the people of this Republic, particularly when it is the latter who are paying the costs relating to the choices made by those opposite.

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