Dáil debates

Tuesday, 24 March 2009

8:00 pm

Photo of Martin FerrisMartin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

No one can argue with the logic of the motion, especially given the current economic situation and that the Government appears to be intent on imposing a large part of the burden for saving public money on those who can least afford it. All of us have received hundreds of representations through meeting constituents, and receiving e-mails, phone calls and letters about the effect the pension levy will have on low-paid workers in the public service and the impact of the vast range of cutbacks that have already been made. Apparently many more are in the pipeline in the proposed budget next week — a week in which the people of Dublin will be without buses due to the shortsighted decision to decimate services and crews in the city, and a week in which tens of thousands of workers will be making known exactly what they think of the Government's approach to the economic and financial crisis.

It is ironic that the Government appears fully intent on draconian measures aimed at the public sector and public services while at the same time Ministers are falling over one another to associate themselves either geographically or otherwise with President Barack Obama. I say that because President Obama's Administration is pumping $800 billion into a stimulus programme which it hopes will get the American economy going again. It is interesting that the world's largest capitalist economy is placing so much emphasis on public investment while there seems to be an almost blind ideological aversion to that here. There is a belief that, for example, laying off 200 bus workers to cut losses is worth the amount of money it will cost to keep them on social welfare, not to mention all the other negative consequences which any increase in unemployment has in social, health and other ways.

It is interesting that the US stimulus package has targeted areas for investment including physical infrastructure, schools, the upgrading of homes to become more energy efficient, health care and so on. The hope obviously is that this will create jobs and generate further investment leading to recovery. Our Government appears to want to go in the opposite direction and to attack all of those things. After decades of neoliberal economics and a free hand given to the financial speculators who have brought the global economy to its knees, President Obama and the Democrats appear to be returning to their roots in the Roosevelt New Deal. Keynes, who was for many years discredited, has been rediscovered and it is his theory of the multiplier — of investment leading to even greater spending — that underlies the current American package. President Obama has turned his back on the reactionaries who would have American working class and middle class families pay the price for a crisis that is not of their making.

Fianna Fáil too should learn from its own history in this regard. It was first elected in 1932 in large part due to the failures of the first Cumann na nGaedhael Government. That Government ironically pursued many of the policies which seem to be tempting the current Government and which many suspect would also motivate the Fine Gael Party if it were in power. It was a Government that cut pensions, refused to build public housing while Dublin's north inner city slums had the highest child death rate in Europe, and which considered abolishing both social welfare and income tax. It was thrown out of office by Fianna Fáil with the support of Labour and Irish republicans including militant republicans. Those early Fianna Fáil Governments were among the most radical in Europe because they understood the need to look after people's basic needs and because they were prepared to invest public money when those with wealth in this country refused to and put their money in the London banks and stock exchange.

The six aims of Fianna Fáil set out in 1928 were as follows:

To secure the unity and Independence of Ireland as a Republic.

To restore the Irish Language as the spoken language of the people, and to develop a distinctive national life in accordance with Irish traditions and ideals.

To make the resources and wealth of Ireland subservient to the needs and welfare of all the people of Ireland.

To make Ireland, as far as possible, economically self-contained and self-sufficing.

To establish as many families as practicable on the land.

By suitable distribution of power to promote the realisation of industries essential to the lives of the people as opposed to their concentration in cities.

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