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

In the Taoiseach's misrepresentation of our position on the €10 billion in taxes, he fails to add on who would pay those taxes and we argue very clearly that the very wealthy in our society and the sectors of our society in possession of considerable amounts of money should be taxed in a progressive and fair way to prevent cuts and austerity being imposed on working people and the more vulnerable sectors of our society. Contrary to what the Taoiseach constantly claims, there are huge amounts of money at the top of our society which if taxed fairly and progressively could offset the need for brutal attacks and austerity being imposed on working people and the less well-off who have borne the brunt of the austerity agenda pursued by the Government and the masters in Europe.

One area we have highlighted is precisely the financial transaction tax. I find absolutely extraordinary the Taoiseach's trenchant opposition to even a small bit of extra taxation being imposed on the financial sector. It shows the quite perverse economics being pursued by the Government that it is okay to cut fuel allowance for pensioners, domiciliary care allowance for families with disability and child benefit, and to attack lone parents, but we cannot touch the enormous wealth in the hands of speculators and bankers. Even a tiny increase in tax is unthinkable as far as the Government is concerned and it is absolutely perverse.

Let me remind the Taoiseach, when he considers the matter of whether we should support the financial transaction tax, that it was the speculators and bankers who caused the current economic crisis in this country and Europe. Surely it would be fair and sensible to support imposing some extra taxation on this sector to offset the need to attack working people and the less well off and to regulate to some extent the casino capitalism that has been at the heart of wrecking our economy and the wider European economy. Will the Taoiseach please tell me what is fair or rational about his position of opposing the financial transaction tax and standing alone with David Cameron in his opposition to it, particularly when there is now a sea change throughout Europe whereby people are demanding a fair way of dealing with the economic crisis stating clearly that continued austerity and cuts being imposed on the least well off sectors of our society is failing disastrously and we need a new direction if we are to get ourselves out of the current economic crisis?

My next question is on the fiscal treaty and the Taoiseach's discussions with David Cameron and his views on this given what has happened. I have very serious differences at almost every level with the politics of Prime Minister Cameron, but at least the British Prime Minister had the sense not to sign up to the fiscal treaty. Now he is being joined by forces throughout Europe in France, Holland, Greece, Spain and Portugal with huge movements on the street saying enough and that this is madness. The austerity approach is a disastrous failure and is making the situation worse not better and we must abandon this approach in favour of promoting jobs and growth and not continuing down a disastrous road of institutionalised austerity as proposed in the fiscal treaty.

David Cameron had enough sense to recognise how stupid it was to put this level of control over economic policy into the hands of the EU Commission and the European Central Bank, and how detrimental it could be to the British economy and to British citizens to be locked into this type of policy in perpetuity as the treaty proposes. Now people and political leaders throughout Europe are coming to the realisation that the treaty and the approach contained in it of austerity for years to come is a failure and must be abandoned. Why does the Taoiseach continue down this road? Did he speak to David Cameron and ask him why he chose not to support the fiscal treaty? Will he speak to the political parties which won the day in France and Greece and to the burgeoning movement of opposition to the insane logic of the fiscal treaty throughout Europe and ask them why they have a radically different approach from the one that seems to be favoured by him and Angela Merkel?

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