Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

-----because of the operation of the Government's banks, regulators and polices, above all else. This NAMA business is not some neutral enterprise that will not impact on education, health care provision and looking after our pensioners. It will impact on these because every euro spent underwriting NAMA will be a cost to the taxpayer.

Irrespective of its costs, I do not believe NAMA will work. At least with nationalisation of the banks there would be a sure-footedness in approach. It would provide an instant control to ensure the credit stream goes to SMEs and those who want to develop the economy again. However, as we know, there will be no NAMA for ordinary people.

Sinn Féin's opposition to NAMA is clear. It is not the solution to our banking crisis. It is too costly and too risky. The only correct solution is nationalisation of the main banks and from these creating a State bank that will operate in the interest of would-be home owners and small businesses.

Unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, Sinn Féin has no agenda of protecting elites who have bankrupted us while continuing to enjoy affluent lifestyles, who have left us with a legacy of ghost housing estates on the edge of our towns, reminiscent of Famine villages. We will stand up for the ordinary people who want action to address the fact that their homes are in negative equity, who want jobs to be created, who need credit to keep their business afloat and who want to see those responsible for this economic crisis held to account.

We need to aspire to a better future, not a return to some less extravagant version of the Celtic tiger. It has to involve dealing with the legacy of the corruption and malpractice of the Celtic tiger, writing off the negative equity portion of the mortgages of those on average and low incomes, redistributing land and housing developments which will be foreclosed on for the public good, social housing, schools, play facilities and other public needs. It has to involve providing education, training and alternative employment particularly for those who were tempted out of education to make their living in the booming construction sector. It has to involve the establishment of a State bank that would support productive entrepreneurial activity over useless greedy speculation and be ethical in its lending practices.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance need to ask themselves why the people do not trust the Government or NAMA. Is it because people believe the economic crisis was caused by the policies this Government pursued? Is it because this Government stood over cheering on and incentivising the reckless greed of developers and the malpractice of bankers? Is it because they know this Government has done nothing as thousands have lost their jobs but is willing to intervene to save the ill-gotten gains of property developers?

It is against the background of repeated lies by this Government that we have to judge the proposition with which we are presented. It lied about the state of the economy in advance of and after the 2007 general election. The Fianna Fáil 2007 general election manifesto was a pack of lies. The Government party had access to information about the state of the economy but chose to mislead and bluff the public. It misled people when it said no one warned about the implications of the property bubble and the economy's overdependency on construction. It lied when claiming there is no alternative. There are alternatives but the Government does not want to know them because they are not bailouts.

The response of this Government to those of us who raised questions repeatedly about the need to address soaring house prices was to ridicule any suggestion that a property bubble was developing. How often did we hear the words "soft landing"? Ministers who said there were no affordability problems were telling bare-faced lies. It is ordinary people in negative equity and now facing repossession who are paying the price for those lies.

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