Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank Deputy Higgins and the Labour Party for sharing time.

This Bill does not provide the mechanism necessary to lift us out of this economic recession. The Government is failing completely to put in place a stimulus package and to incentivise economic enterprise and those entrepreneurs who are vital to getting us back on a constructive course. The Government has been pursuing the same policy for two years.

Deputy Ardagh, whom I hope I am not misquoting, stated the people of Ireland overspent. He stated this was the big problem. If so, it is the fault of the people of Ireland that we are in this economic mess and experiencing this catastrophe. If Deputy Ardagh or anybody else really believes this, he should not be here.

People did, of course, overspend but they were following Government policy, which not only allowed them but actively encouraged them to do so. The Government looked the other way when banks were giving 100% and 120% mortgages. My colleague and Deputy Ó Caoláin, in particular, called on the Government over three years ago to cap mortgages at 90% or, at an absolute maximum, 95%. This would at least have cooled the market to some degree. It did not happen.

Where was the Financial Regulator to address the question of the salary-loan ratio? The Regulator looked the other way and allowed the mess to continue. One cannot blame the people, therefore, for getting into this mad rat-race or crazy economic race that took place over the best part of the past decade. Government policy was looking in the wrong direction, as the Government is doing now through this Bill.

To understand what I mean by "the wrong direction", one must ask who the Government is targeting. Special needs assistants comprise one group. Although there are many others, I mention them in particular because I have had an avalanche of representations in my constituency offices from them. I have no doubt but that other Deputies also had significant numbers of representations. I hope these Deputies feel as bad and helpless about the issue as I do. Parents, and in some cases single parents, explained to me the huge disability of their children and how those children were getting on so well because of the special needs assistants and the excellent care and love and attention they were receiving, yet they are the victims of the Government's policy.

There are other categories of people affected, as we see from the slashing of the social welfare payments to swathes of people. One should compare this policy with that of cutting the wages of high-income earners by only a fraction, as discussed in the Fine Gael motion on Private Members' business, which I totally support. The mantra stated regularly by the Government that it is targeting those who can pay and leaving alone those who cannot afford to pay is untrue.

The Government's taxation policy is crazy. Through the boom years, the Government was totally dependent on consumption taxes, such as stamp duty and VAT. The over-dependence on consumption taxes was completely unsustainable because the taxes were indirect and therefore completely unreliable in terms of generating an income stream for the Exchequer. As a consequence, when the economy began to turn, the Government was caught, a bit like the emperor with no clothes. It was completely exposed to huge risk. There is still insufficient capacity to pursue a proper and fair taxation system.

Every Government decision in the past three years has compounded the damage already done. One concerns the bank guarantee scheme of September 2008, worth €440 billion. It was implemented without putting proper terms and conditions in place. The decision to guarantee the banks was bad enough on its own but the failure to have proper terms and conditions meant that it was ludicrous. The decision to nationalise Anglo Irish Bank was crazy. Why would one do this? It was done because the bank is known as the Fianna Fáil bank. This is the name it had about town. We need not waste time this evening elaborating on this. Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland were recapitalised when they should have been nationalised. A proper State bank should have been put in their place.

The most recent flawed decision by the Government concerns NAMA. NAMA was supposed to be about ensuring a proper finance stream and credit stream for small and medium enterprises. I am delighted that The Irish Times revealed the truth yesterday. I congratulate it on obtaining Government documents through a freedom of information request that exposed the lie that the Government told the House. It totally misled the House when told by the IMF that NAMA would have no input on lending.

See this speech in context