Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The central issue I wish to address is the IMF-EU deal, but the Libyan crisis was also discussed at the summit. I would like to follow up my question to the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs during Question Time earlier about the Libyan bombings. We should be screaming from the rooftops about the inconsistencies and double standards that are being applied because we have been told the action taking place in Libya is designed to prevent violent attacks by the Gadaffi regime against Libyan civilians. Preventing such attacks is an entirely laudable ambition and supporting the movement for democracy within Libya, which is seeking to overthrow the Gadaffi regime and establish a democracy, is also entirely laudable. I hope Members are genuine and serious in making statements on this but one has to seriously question the bona fides of the US, France, Britain and other major powers, given they made enormous sums arming Gadaffi in recent years and providing him with the weapons he is now using against his own people.

The Minster might say that is history but this cynical policy of double standards in supporting brutal regimes continues in the form of turning a blind eye to what the rulers of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates are doing to their people who, like the people of Libya, are campaigning on the streets for democracy and an end to dictatorships. No one is screaming from the rooftops about this inconsistency. The only way to explain this inconsistency is that the intervention of the US and the major European powers has nothing whatsoever to do with supporting the movement for democracy in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East and has everything to do with using any means to secure control over oil supplies in the region. If that means backing dictatorships that are crushing democratic movements, they will do so. We in Ireland have a special responsibility to raise our voices about this.

I refer to the IMF-EU deal. Much play has been made of the attempt to renegotiate the deal, which everyone accepts is unsustainable in the context of the interest repayments on the huge loans the State must take to bail out the banks. This amounts to shifting around the deckchairs on the Titanic. Even if the Government manages to secure a 1% reduction in the interest rate on the repayments, that would barely address the unsustainability of this deal. Approximately €100 billion will be borrowed but national revenue is €30 billion and economic growth is zero. Even on the best projections, economic growth will not exceed 2% annually over the next few years and no credible projection would suggest it would exceed that. One could credibly argue that as the Government takes money out of the economy through austerity cuts, the economy will continue to contract and it is obvious we are digging a hole for ourselves. While the EU and the IMF are extorting us with interest rates on these loans, we are digging a worse hole for ourselves and it is unsustainable.

What I find particularly galling about this is it represents a serious U-turn by the Minister and by Fine Gael in the context of what they said during the election campaign. According to the Minister, it would be "Labour's way or Frankfurt's way" but that tough talk has been dropped. Fine Gael was more specific when it launched its banking policy document in February. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan said: "The next government would be forced to "unilaterally" restructure the debt of Irish banks if agreement cannot be reached with Europe on senior bond holders sharing the cost of recapitalising the country's insolvent banks." He went to say, "It is neither morally right nor economically sustainable for taxpayers to be asked to beggar themselves to make massive profits for speculators".

Fine Gael said senior unguaranteed bondholders should be unilaterally burned. The Central Bank of Ireland stated in recent days senior unguaranteed, unsecured bonds amounted to €16 billion. Why is the Government not unilaterally restructuring that debt and saying it will not pay? Fine Gael and the Labour Party are reneging on their policies and they are begging the Union to lower the interest rate on the loans by 1%, which will make no difference to the unsustainability of this deal. That is a massive U-turn. Should the Government parties not match their pre-election rhetoric by seriously standing up to Europe and saying they will not pay the gambling debts of private institutions because they will sink this economy and are unjust, and private financial institutions, the ECB and the EU have to take responsibility for their culpability in causing this crisis by promoting the policies that led to the reckless speculation in the banking and property sectors? To do anything less would betray the aspirations of those who voted for the Government parties in the election.

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