Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I can only interpret the Taoiseach's answer as stating the way to get back economic sovereignty is to give it away. That does not make sense.

Does the Taoiseach remember the document I have to hand, namely, the famous five-point plan? Yesterday, the Taoiseach told Members that he supported the growth agenda being advocated by the French President-elect. Given that the Taoiseach is the poster boy for austerity and is the Taoiseach who refuses to ask for a write-down of our private debt, does he intend to return to this manifesto? Does he intend to invest €7 billion in energy, communications and water? Alternatively, perhaps the Government intends to implement the Labour Party's pre-election commitment to establish a strategic investment bank or perhaps it eventually will come round to listen to the sense of the Sinn Féin proposition, which is to take up to €7 billion, over three years, from the National Pensions Reserve Fund and from the European Investment Bank and to get people back to work in that way. As the Taoiseach will not answer the earlier question and now is all in favour of getting people off the dole and back to work, he should indicate which of these plans he will advocate. Will it be the Fine Gael manifesto, the Sinn Féin plan or that of the Labour Party?

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