Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)

-----tomfoolery with President Sarkozy.

We have identified four elements to the crisis, with which I think the Taoiseach will agree. There are the issues of the crisis of investment and the crisis of the role of European Central Bank. How can the European Central Bank play a more constructive role in solving this crisis? There are also the issues of debt restructuring and of the management of this crisis and the banking crisis throughout Europe.

Let us deal with the first one because the Taoiseach asked for solutions and constructive debate. Let me give him Sinn Féin's constructive contribution in case he did not have the opportunity to read what I gave him. In terms of the investment crisis, we have a National Pensions Reserve Fund with €5.3 billion. When the Sinn Féin leader, Deputy Gerry Adams, the deputy leader, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, Deputy Pearse Doherty and I met the troika, we probed this issue of utilising the European Investment Bank's immense resources. The bank has a strong track record in terms of investment and return, so it is a fairly prudent and strategic way to invest money. We should combine the resources of the European Investment Bank with our National Pensions Reserve Fund and utilise that to invest in various projects, for example, the roll-out of next generation broadband. Recently, Deputies and Senators from all parties watched a presentation on the potential this would unleash in this country. I could go on but that is just one element. We need to unleash the potential of the European Investment Bank in a serious way.

The little document which was used as window dressing to the austerity treaty has no new money or no new plans. It is a reconfiguration of existing ideas. We need a dramatic intervention and a real message of hope, jobs and growth to be sent to people throughout Europe, in particular, in the interest of the Taoiseach, to people in Ireland. That is the first element in terms of investment.

The second element is the banking system. Let us have a bit of honesty about this. There must be rigorous stress testing of the core European banks because we have not had it to date. We know they behaved recklessly and were utilised strategically to take that trade surplus and wealth in Germany and other states to invest it in the periphery, whether a bad investment in the Greek Government or an appallingly bad investment in the private Irish banks. We know they have caused this crisis and that it was not caused by the people going mad borrowing. We know there was a fundamental lack of regulation in the international financial system which was not just limited to Europe. We know it happened in the US also. When will we have rigorous stress testing of those banks and then some deleveraging? We can then recapitalise when we know where we stand. We have had some tinkering around the edges. This is the core issue that Sinn Féin believes these states are afraid of. When we go to that issue, we get to the root of the problem. However, there is no Government solution to address it, other than to say that we must have more austerity.

The third element, after investment and banking, is sovereign debt. We must have a real discussion about how Ireland, Greece and other countries will sustain this debt. Where is the burden sharing? Where is the pain being felt by the banking system for the calamitous approach it took to global finances? There has to be a real debate about that.

We in Ireland cannot be condemned to these annual €3.1 billion promissory notes, nor can we be condemned to continue with these cuts and all the lobbies we have to face. I am sure if we had more Fine Gael and Labour Deputies here for this debate they would testify that their clinics are packed and their diaries are full of meetings with representations from schools, hospitals and other sectors that say they cannot sustain the cutbacks. There must be hope for a way out of this situation.

When the Taoiseach was first elected to the Dáil all those decades ago, I do not think he ever imagined that he would be presiding over such a scenario. At some point, he will have to give our people hope. He will have to go out there and find that Irish spirit, which has been there for generations, to do something about this. He will have to go in and say, "Folks, enough of the niceties and frivolities - the 500-lb gorilla in the room is this crisis which is not being addressed properly". He will have to tell Chancellor Angela Merkel that we do not have a crisis because the Irish people went mad borrowing and spending but because political leaders, the global banking system, estate agents and economists, who were paid by the financial institutions, utterly failed our people.

When the regular Joe Soaps and five eighths turned on their televisions at home every single night, an economist was telling them they had to buy now because house prices were going to rise further. Then they said there would be a soft landing. When they opened their newspapers, there were property supplements about lifestyles and how many houses were for sale. Our people are not Harvard, Yale or Trinity-educated economists; they are just hard-working, decent people but they were profoundly failed by their political leaders. When will that conversation take place? When will we say that those responsible for this will pay a price, like the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland who was stripped of his knighthood? When will there be a radical realignment of that system, instead of those responsible being rewarded in America as treasury secretaries, and in Europe being appointed as technocrat prime ministers or to the presidency of the ECB? Those are the very people in Goldman Sachs who drove this crisis. Mr. Peter Sutherland, a former European Commissioner and Irish Attorney General, is telling us that we should pay our way. He is not representing the interests of the Irish people, however. He is representing his pals in Goldman Sachs. At what point will we confront those who colluded to do so much harm to the people of Ireland, Europe and globally? The Taoiseach knows that Sinn Féin is right in this analysis. Why do we give these people a place at the top table?

We must allow the European Central Bank to access primary markets and purchase those government bonds. There has to be a way of deploying the European Investment Bank, the ECB and our collective wisdom to address this crisis and give our people hope. Sinn Féin does not want to see the destruction of the potential for a social Europe. Ireland cannot achieve her potential on her own. We must engage with the outside world in transacting business and building alliances. We must stand together and challenge injustices, including human rights abuses. We should be clear that there is a solution in working with our European partners, but at some stage we must collectively challenge those who caused this crisis. The Taoiseach can be sure that it is not the ordinary people of Mayo, Donegal or Dublin who did so.

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