Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I outlined my concerns and those of my party regarding the reform, theoretically, of the IMF that is supposed to be happening but is not happening. What we have before us is legislation that will not make any major changes. It removes the fact that five of the larger countries in the IMF can appoint members to the executive board, and they will all be directly elected. On that point Sinn Féin will not stand in the way of this legislation but we should not pretend, and the previous speaker hit the nail on the head in this respect, that this will lead to any real change or governance reform within the IMF. The wealthiest countries in the IMF represent 15% of the membership but it has 60% of the voting rights within the IMF. That is the issue that must be addressed if we are to have credibility for that organisation and real democratisation of the IMF.

Would any party in this House support the concept, for example, of France and Germany, with 15% of the population of the European Union, having 60% of the votes? No party in this House would tolerate such a system so why should we ask the less well off countries to accept that? The IMF is undemocratic in its nature and is fundamentally flawed in terms of its governance. This legislation is about window dressing but at the same time the legislation is before us. Does it make it fairer in terms of the appointment of the executive board? Of course it does. It removes some of the power of the five major countries in the IMF but that is not where the game should be. There must be proper fundamental reform in regard to the IMF and the best way of doing that is for Ireland to start batting on behalf of other countries that are being penalised as a result of the lack of democracy within the IMF. We should make that clear. During this debate on the Bretton Woods agreement we have not had a Government spokesperson taking a principled stand on this issue. Traditionally, the Irish people and previous Irish Governments have stood up for less well off countries. Unfortunately, that was a missed opportunity on the part of this Government. I accept the legislation addresses some small issues in terms of appointment of board members and so on but this debate could have been used as an opportunity to signal Ireland's intent that there must be proper, serious structural reform in terms of democracy within the IMF instead of the type of window dressing we have here, which is marginally better but misses the picture.

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