Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

It is also perhaps fitting that we should be debating this motion on the same day the McCarthy report on State assets and liabilities was published. That report recommends a massive sale of State assets, which will mean throwing away decades of public investment, with the only beneficiaries being the bondholders and the IMF, who will pick up the proceeds, as is clearly stated that they should in the report. Of course, private interests will pick up their own wee bits through the profitable parts of the companies that will come under the hammer.

The losers under the previous Administration and now under the current Administration will be those workers who will lose their jobs, and the rest of us, who will see the level of service provision decline. This entire society is being undermined on the back of this mess, which will have untold consequences in terms of social disintegration and poverty unless we stand up and say that enough is enough. The Labour Party was willing to say that six weeks ago but it is unwilling to say it today.

Page 3 of the McCarthy report outlines that the State holding in the banks will be sold off at some stage but not yet, as it is too early to consider it at this point in time. What does this mean? It means that with regard to the banks we are bailing out, and into which we are pumping €70 billion of Irish citizens' money, once they start making a buck and becoming profitable, we will sell them off so that private interests can take the benefits and screw the citizens of the State again.

Where the McCarthy report is relevant to the oil and gas sector, it represents a continuation of the surrender of vital State interests and natural resources. These are resources which have the potential to be the basis for sustained long-term growth. Given this Government's embrace of the policies of the last one, we can expect that the anti-national manner in which our mineral resources have been let go will also apply to the sale of State assets.

They may protest but I suspect that, like all their other bluster about how they were going to stand up to Frankfurt and the bondholders, they will meekly do as they are told to. The most important people who will read that report, the people who tell the Government what amendments to put down to our motions in this Chamber, are the EU and IMF officials who insist on the recommendations-----

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