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

I wish to make an elementary point that relates to the point Deputy Stagg made about quangos. Quangos are unaccountable. They are areas of public endeavour that are at one remove from public accountability through this Chamber. Privatisation does that to an even greater degree. It is about giving away land, resources, vital infrastructure, strategic industry, vitally important companies and so on, which belong to the public. Therefore, through their public representatives members of the public have at least theoretically some influence over how those things are utilised in the interest of society as a whole or whatever. Privatisation means the end of that. It also means we are increasingly reduced to being a talking shop because it does not matter what we say as somebody else owns those things.

In order to get a 1% reduction in its interest rate Greece has been told to sell the telecommunications and power infrastructure, and hospitals and the credit union system are to be privatised. That is a systematic destruction of democracy. If the EU and IMF are willing to do that to Greece, why should we think they want to do anything different to us? Regardless of how much we get down on our knees and claim to be good boys in adhering to their programme, it is sinking our economy, yet they come back for more. Even to get a small concession from them we have to promise to give away more of our public resources and in the process give away our democracy.

Having a real and responsive democracy requires walking away from a deal that has handed over that democracy to forces that are completely unaccountable. If public representatives were to be truly representative of the public, they should have wages and conditions commensurate with what ordinary people have to deal with. Would we not be fighting much harder for the ordinary working people of the country if our economic situation was the same as theirs, which is what I propose?

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