Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. I echo what was suggested previously, that we follow this Private Members' debate with another one on default because that is, in effect, what the Technical Group is seeking, even though it has chosen to muddy the waters with its selective phraseology on dirty bankers and the other language its members use. They are trying to equate the payments to bondholders with cuts to hospitals and schools. Speakers have muddied the waters and created much angst. I congratulate them on that. If that is what they were looking for, they have achieved something. Many hard-pressed people are very annoyed, angry and frustrated with this added pressure. I say well done to them on that.

I urge the members of the Technical Group to do the responsible thing. They were elected to this House and in that regard they should show a small bit of leadership and inform people on the facts, not on the cheap, popular headlines they have sought to date. They should be honest and tell people as it is. They should do the decent thing and follow up this Private Members' debate with one next week to the effect that we as a State would default on our debt. It is one and the same thing. The debt we have inherited from Anglo Irish Bank is a State debt.

I do not know why the Technical Group has chosen to hone in on this issue other than that it is popular because it relates to bankers. We also owe a huge debt to the European Central Bank, ECB, and a massive debt to the International Monetary Fund, IMF. Why is the Technical Group not asking us to default on those debts? Debt is debt. The Members opposite know how the Irish Credit Bureau works. If someone defaults on any debt, his or her credit rating goes down. It does not matter whether it was a loan for a holiday or to educate one's children. Once one defaults, one defaults. If the Technical Group wants the State to default, then its Members should put it up to the Government to default. We would welcome such a debate because it would be an opportunity to deal with people head-on, to tell them the truth and the facts they need to hear.

The fact is that this country has a €12 billion deficit. I read Deputy Boyd Barrett's pre-budget submission and listened to the proposals he made. Watching people play the game of Twister makes more sense than listening to him explain how a wealth tax would bridge the divide. A wealth tax is a permanent asset. It is a stagnant asset. One cannot keep taxing it indefinitely. We might get a return in one year by putting a 30% or 40% tax on the wealth which the Deputy cannot make up his mind exists today. We might get over the hill in one year. We could raid the National Pensions Reserve Fund. That is all very well. If the Members of the Technical Group had been put in government 12 months ago and had introduced a wealth tax and raided the National Pensions Reserve Fund, one must ask where we would go from there. Both of those sources of income would be gone and we would rely on the troika, the ECB, the IMF or the EU to keep this country going for the next 12 months. Or else they could reduce the €12 billion with a once-off budget. That is the stark reality of the choices facing this country. I resent the hyperbole and hysteria that the Technical Group is generating throughout the country in the past two days for cheap political gain and to glorify its own ends.

Austerity has become the new dirty word. It is an awful pity we did not have austerity in this country ten years ago. Austerity is merely cutting one's cloth to suit one's measure. It does not have to be a dirty word.

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