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

It is important that we have this discussion. Despite the fact that I disagree with much of what was said on the other side of the House, I welcome the seriousness with which some of the contributors on the Government side have engaged with the debate, which we badly need to have. Some of the comments were glib and off the point, although that was not true of any Deputies in the Chamber at present. There were several references to green jerseys. That is glib. This is not a football match. There were also suggestions that Deputies on this side of the House are anti-European. This is particularly misplaced with regard to the Deputies of the United Left Alliance, who have tabled an amendment to the motion. I hope Deputy White has read our amendment because it puts forward positive proposals. The starting point of the United Left Alliance is thoroughly and completely internationalist. Our critique of what is going on in the European Union and of the eurozone crisis stems from a completely internationalist perspective. This is why we have put ourselves on the side of the people of Greece, Portugal, Spain and, for that matter, Egypt, who are resisting what is going on in the global economy.

It is important that we understand what is at stake in the current crisis. We are facing the most severe crisis since the 1930s. People should ponder what that means. The depression of the 1930s led to the Second World War. It does not overstate the seriousness of the situation to say we could be propelled to such a crisis if we get this wrong. In that regard, EU leaders, including the Taoiseach, do not seem to get what is going on. They are debating the degree to which we should dismantle democracy within the European Union to ram through a certain economic agenda - of bank bailouts, austerity and market measures. Every statement they make is about the need to assuage the markets. The issues at stake in the European debate are not the ones on which the media are focused, nor are they the ones that will be debated at the European Council meeting. It is not what they disagree on, that the Government disagrees with them or that they disagree among themselves that is the problem, but what they agree on. They all agree that we must continue to bail out banks, impose austerity - let us call it fiscal responsibility - and assuage the markets. However, this fails to understand the fundamentals of how we got into the crisis in the first place. If we do not understand how we got into it, we have no chance of resolving the issue. It was the markets that led us to the crisis. They were unregulated, frenzied and profit-hungry. It was their trillions sloshing around in the international markets, looking to make the quickest buck, wherever possible, whether through speculation in property, derivatives or bonds, that brought us to the crisis and they are still doing it.

Nevertheless, the policy being proposed by all sides of the European leadership, including the Government, is that we must continue to assuage the markets, that the issue will be resolved when the markets are happy. However, even the markets do not believe this is possible, which is why they are downgrading European debt, even Germany's. The European economy is being smothered in the bankers' debts and cannot recover with them. Even the markets which caused the mess know this. They also know something else - that austerity is crippling growth in the European economy. The need to bail out the banks and the resulting austerity measures demanded of economies are crippling growth and making a bad situation worse. None of them will debate this issue. It is not being debated in the media and is not and will not be debated at the European Council meeting. In fairness to Deputy Peter Mathews, in referring to derivatives and the craziness of the European and global financial system, he is pointing in the right direction in terms of the madness of the markets in the way they are operating.

It is in this way that what is happening elsewhere in Europe intersects with the austerity being imposed here. These are not separate issues, they are connected. Many of the budget measures being imposed are directed at young women, single women living in poverty and their children, who want to educate themselves. They are trying to get on community employment and FETAC schemes to educate themselves in order that their children will be able to contribute to society and they can help economic recovery. These measures will drive them back further into poverty. This is but one example. If the Government keeps doing this to the people who produce the wealth in the economy and continues to deny them an education and does not invest in them in order that they can work, the European economy will not recover.

The Government's hopes that the ECB will solve the problem are mistaken also. It is a false debate. If they print money - the solution being pursued by Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy - there will be inflation. That is what happened in the 1930s. If they just print money and there is no real economic activity, there will be inflation. Both sides of the argument are wrong. The only alternative is investment and the only way investment can happen is if the trillions now in the hands of the financial markets are taken from them and invested in rational economic activity, in infrastructure, strategic enterprise, industry and putting people back to work. If we do not do this, there is no chance of recovery.

To do this, we must consider redistributing wealth. If the Government does not put the redistribution of wealth on the agenda, we will not be able to control what the markets are doing. They are running amok. If they are not happy with what comes from the summit - they will not be - they will start speculating again. We must remove the power from them This can only be done by redistributing wealth, which means measures such as wealth taxes, progressive income taxation and so on. It also means democracy, with ordinary people deciding how resources should be invested.

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