Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister not accept that money is being shifted from lines and programmes that were non-conditional, like cohesion funds and rural development funds, into lines and programmes that are conditional? I accept that rural development funds are conditional in terms of rural development criteria but they are non-conditional in terms of austerity or reform measures. Under the reform delivery tool, €22 billion will be available for member states in direct exchange for doing what the Commission tells them under the national surveillance of budgets process. It is like generalising from the model of the troika, whereby the money is given to member states only if they do X, Y and Z. The X,Y and Z conditions never include spending more on social welfare or investing more in health or education but always include investing less, privatising and bringing down unit labour costs. This is a mechanism to tie the hands of governments because in order to be able to access funds, they have to implement what are invariably neoliberal measures.