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

Is it not the case that any perceived short-term advantage - the Government has not given any statistics or figures to back up the assertion that jobs will be lost in the Irish financial services sector - by essentially blocking the imposition of a financial transactions tax on the financial markets in Europe will amount ot a pyrrhic victory because it will make the position more volatile? It is inevitable there will be further shocks on the international financial markets and we will be hardest hit, along with Britain, because we will have failed to put a tax on the institutions and diversify and sustain the economy, which is what we desperately need to do, by getting some money back and investing it in economic, industrial and manufacturing activity that could provide jobs and a sustainable economic future instead of riding on the backs of the anarchic financial markets.

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