Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

The clear impression given by the Nyberg report and the media in general is that we all lost the run of ourselves and that we were all in it together, but nothing could be further from the truth. We did not all lose the run of ourselves and we were not all in it together. Unfortunately, the report is a whitewash and a cover-up for the Irish Establishment which supported the banking process that brought about the current crisis and recession. The report is a cover-up, but we must name and shame those involved. Generally, they include the Irish super-rich who still have €250 billion worth of assets, Irish and European bankers, developers, politicians, the Government of the day, the Department of Finance, the former Minister and the former Taoiseach, as well as the board of the Central Bank and the Economic and Social Research Institute. They are responsible for our current position, not the people in my constituency, in towns such as Carrick-on-Suir and Tipperary where there was no Celtic tiger. They suffered three, four or five times the average level of unemployment during that period. They live in RAPID areas and make up some of the 50,000 families on local authority housing lists and the thousands of first-time home buyers who have been forced into a position of negative equity, with large mortgages that they are unable to meet.

All of the political parties bought into the process, as we will see if we examine each of the manifestos for the 2007 general election. Worst of all, no political party - either in the previous or current Government - is prepared to deal with those singularly involved in creating the crisis, the people who are still very rich and who still have significant amounts of money. None of the main political parties is prepared to tax the rich or make them pay an assets tax in order to obtain a fair share for society. There is an urgent need to do this.

See this speech in context