Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

The so-called Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union is wrongly named. Instead it should be called a treaty to ensure the people of Ireland and other European Union states will suffer the consequences of bad decisions by the European Central Bank. Additionally, the treaty will enable the Government to claim a democratic mandate and the blessing of Irish voters in turning private debt into public debt. When the current economic crisis began to unfold, Sinn Féin argued that the best way for Ireland to steer its way back onto the path of recovery was a policy of investment in jobs and investment in our economy. Two Governments and several budgets later, the opposite policy has been and is being pursued. The economy is still in stagnation, hundreds of thousands are emigrating, unemployment is rising and ordinary people are falling further and further into debt. A policy of spending cuts coupled with the imposition of tax increases on low and middle-income earners, heralded by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and championed by the current Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, has resulted in nothing but hardship and a deepening of the economic crisis. The Government now forecasts that one in ten people will be out of work by 2015. It is abundantly clear that the policy of austerity has failed miserably. Despite this, the Government is determined that this austerity treaty will be passed into Irish law. Its commitment to austerity, despite its clear failure, indicates that it has not learnt the lessons of recent years.

There can be no doubt that the treaty is a bad deal for Ireland. The austerity of recent years has sent the country into a spiralling decline of debt, emigration and economic depression. However, the Government is determined to continue on the same failed path. It is holding a candle, hoping that Europe in its current format will lead us to a more prosperous future. What it fails to recognise, or refuses to acknowledge, is that the hardship contained in the austerity treaty will cripple the people of this country. I agree that Ireland should be at the heart of Europe. Some people claim that Sinn Féin was never committed to the European ideal.

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