Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Fáiltím go bhfuil an díospóireacht seo againn ach tá sé go mór thar am. Nuair a chím an tslí ina bhfuil an díospóireacht seo curtha le chéile, tá an fáth go bhfuil an géarchéim seo againn soiléir. Given the scale of the eurozone crisis and its effect on this State, it is shameful the Government has taken months to schedule this debate. However, I cannot say I am surprised. The approach of the Government to this crisis has been incompetent and inept. When it was elected, the Minister should have gone to our partners in the EU and told them that as a new Government with a huge mandate it was not bound by the commitments of the previous Government and it was mandated to negotiate a new deal for the citizens of this State. In other words the Minister should have told them what the Government was elected to do and it should have done what it was elected to do. However, it stood idly by and as one crisis piled on another, and political leaders across the EU scrambled to respond, the Minister and his colleagues sat on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to come up with a solution.

In June and July of this year the Government struck lucky. The crisis in Greece deepened to such an extent that eurozone leaders, fearful of serious contagion in Italy, lowered interest rates beyond the Government's own miserable target of 0.6%. Sinn Féin welcomed this reduction in the interest rate but we warned that it would not address the overall level of debt held by those eurozone countries most at risk from default, including this State. The EU deals struck over the summer also did nothing to address the urgent need for investment in job creation, and economic and social recovery. These agreements strengthened the underlying flawed approach of the EU to this crisis - namely pouring billions of Irish taxpayers' euros into toxic and dead banks and imposing the cost of these bailouts on ordinary people in the form of so-called austerity policies. This approach in its time was pursued enthusiastically by Fianna Fáil and now it is being actively implemented by Fine Gael and Labour.

As the Minister plans to slash up to €4 billion from the economy in December it is clear that he cares little about the social consequences for the young, the low and middle-income families, the elderly and sick, the almost half a million people on the live register, or those thousands of people who have been forced to leave the island.

The mortgage crisis continues to spiral out of control. Low income families are being pushed further into poverty. The Government is living in a bubble and is not in touch with what is happening. As evidenced from the latest Exchequer returns, the domestic economy will continue to be in recession well into 2012 and all the time the eurozone crisis deepens. The Government's failure to come up with adequate solutions to the eurozone crisis, a failure that it shares with its EU partners, is that it simply does not understand the problem. The Government is unashamedly Europhile.

The euro crisis was not caused by excessive public spending in peripheral euro economies such as Greece, Portugal or this State, nor was it caused by deficits in these countries. The crisis stems in the first instance from the reckless behaviour of banks at the core of the eurozone which lent aggressively to banks on the periphery. The banks were assisted by excessive surpluses in core economies such as Germany and cheap money facilitated by low interest rates for the euro. The failure of governments and EU institutions to properly regulate this massive lending spree is now well acknowledged. Although the mountain of debt has yet to be quantified, this mornings newspapers indicate that European leaders are beginning to wake up to the black hole that lies at the heart of all of this.

I am very concerned at a number of points in the Minister's statement, including his reference to new governance and improved economic governance structure. On behalf of the party I represent, let me warn that we will not tolerate the Government moving from where it is at the moment. Already having given away fiscal powers it now appears to be poised to give away monetary powers. Sinn Féin will oppose that here and wherever we get the opportunity to do so.

Ní maith ar bith a bheith ag caitheamh airgead isteach sna bainc dona seo. Tá a fhios ag an Aire nach réiteoidh sé sin an fhadhb. Ní maith a bheith ag cur fiacha móra sa mhullach ar thíortha atá faoi fhiacha troma cheana féin. Ní cuidiú ar bith é don ghéarchéim.

Forcing ordinary citizens to pay for this financial mess is not only morally and ethically wrong, but makes no social or economic sense. My colleague, an Teachta Pearse Doherty, will set out Sinn Féin's view of what new approach is needed and how we see the problem being resolved.

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