Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank Deputy Burton and the Labour Party for sharing time with me. I welcome the opportunity to speak to this Fine Gael motion. When I started to read the document, I thought it was very good stuff and wondered whether a coalition might be possible, since I would not have thought so previously. A special delegate conference of our people would have been completely hostile to it. However, on reading the first seven or eight bullet points, I believed the motion was going exceptionally well. "Ireland has suffered the longest and deepest recession of any eurozone country because of reckless domestic management of the economy" was 100% right and all of the bullet points were flagging valid issues, such as the Government "failing to recognise that its economic plan is failing to undo the loss of international financial market confidence in Ireland". Of course that is correct, but then the very last one tripped me, referring to "restructure and re-capitalise the semi-State utilities in order to raise the necessary commercial funding to accelerate investments in water, high speed broadband and clean energy".

I totally support the concept of raising funds for improving clean water and ensuring that it is available for our people, that there is high speed broadband and, of course, clean energy. Where I disagree with Fine Gael is that I do not agree we should be selling off the State agencies, which it proposes revamping for this purpose, in order to fund that critical infrastructure. There are other ways, which we set out most recently in our pre-budget submission in December 2009 in preparation for budget 2010. We believe it is fundamentally important that the State maintains its critical infrastructure and its State services, such as, for example, the ESB. It makes an annual return to the Exchequer which is very healthy and it is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Why on earth would one consider privatising the ESB? Another example is the social service role of An Post, aside altogether from the public service it provides. The Minister of State is a rural Deputy, as are Deputy Perry and I, and we really value the service An Post delivers. Privatising it would be an enormous additional burden on the people not just in financial, but also in social terms. Whatever short-term economic gain might be achieved through selling services such as this would be very short-sighted indeed.

Take the CIE group of companies. I have no problem with private enterprise standing toe to toe with CIE in relation to public transport and transport generally. However, we cannot have fair weather operators. If we want to provide sustainable public transport, it needs to be what it says on the tin, sustainable, public transport offering a service to our people. Sometimes that means elements of that transport operating at cost. Hopefully, the elements which are particularly profitable will sustain that but I have no problem with toe to toe stuff or competition in that regard. We have been through this before in relation to the whole banking crisis.

If we had in place a properly run State bank, it would not have got involved in the whacky race to the bottom which occurred in the commercial sector. I am not saying we should in any way diminish the commercial sector. All we should do is govern it in such a way that it is practical and functions, so that it cannot get away with the carry-on in which it was engaged. I am talking about loans circulating to the golden circle, without any guarantees whatsoever, and loans washing in and out of various banks as their AGMs approached. It beggars belief that such carry-on could have happened in this State. Then, of course, there was the whole issue of the auditors. Where were the auditors in these companies because, after all, they are corporate entities? They were obliged to submit audit reports and they did. Those auditors were totally blind in relation to activities in the banks. Some of them ended up working for NAMA. Rather than being turfed out and never getting work with anything to do with the State again, they have been rewarded and are helping NAMA to value loans. Is this something we should be tolerating? We are a very passive society.

However, I shall return to the economy because that is the essence of this motion. I was amused by the Minister of State earlier when he said the policies being implemented by the Government were "having the desired effect". The desired effect is, obviously, to squeeze every last cent out of the economy to ensure that the people who spend money are being hammered, such those on low incomes and the welfare dependent, who spend all their money on groceries and bits and pieces - this goes directly into the economy, creating the necessary dynamism. The joke of it all this week is the Government claiming we are out of recession. I thought the Minister for Finance would have been quiet on this "the recession is over" bit. I accept it is a technical manifestation as to how recession is measured or otherwise but just talk to any single one of the 450,000 on the live register and ask them if the recession is over. Ask the thousands of small business people who struggle from day to day to try to keep their businesses going because they have lost their customer base. With that has gone their cash flow.

A small business will try to organise an overdraft to keep going and keep as many people employed as possible. The banks, however, respond with their shutters down, "no deal", and will not lend money. The Irish Banking Federation representatives came before the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment this afternoon. They were telling us that loans were flying and they were looking after small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, indigenous business, etc. I had to remind them fairly forcefully that the people I meet on a daily basis, the small businesses who are keeping the economy going, have no trust or belief whatsoever in the banking sector, yet the Government is allowing them to get away with it. If the Government had nationalised the two big associated banks, in particular, Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, rather than telling lies to the Department of Finance, and various Oireachtas committees such as the enterprise committee, the Joint Committee on Economic and Regulatory Affairs and others, we could have cut to the chase. The Government could have got its hands on the levers of these banks and made sure there was a proper funding stream going to small and medium-sized enterprises, so they were not depending on the lackeys in the banks.

NAMA admitted to the finance committee just three weeks ago that the banks were still not coming clean, even at this late stage in the game. NAMA has told us it is going to get quite cross with the banks because it is fed up with how they are behaving. In terms of whether the country is "out of recession", talk to people in any of the constituencies involved in this House and ask them. I do not know whether that is meant to be humorous or if it is just encouraging people to be scornful of the whole setup of politics here. Certainly, I believe politics has got a bad name, particularly on foot of what the Government policies have been, to bail out the bankers and speculators. We are letting down all those unfortunate people who cannot meet their mortgage repayments through no fault of their own, because they have been made unemployed. Just this afternoon we learn that the Minister for Social Protection is increasing the mortgage interest relief to banks. That will not gain one red cent for their poor unfortunates in their homes, but it will put extra taxpayers' money into the coffers of the banks, and that is scandalous.

Government policy on having multinational companies as almost its entire centre of focus has been totally misguided. It is time that the State recognised the role of the small business person, the entrepreneur, and turned this around to give some type of credence to job retention and job creation in that sector, which affords the vast amount of employment in the State. It is time it was offered some type of additionality in terms of support for the services it is offering. Those small businesses are the backbone of the economy, and will continue to be, but only if the Government gives them adequate support.

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