Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The economic difficulties across Europe about which the Taoiseach and Deputy Micheál Martin ring their hands are the direct consequence of austerity, the very policies the Taoiseach wants to put into the treaty. He talks about the Spanish banks but not once when he was in negotiations did he ask for a write-down of the private debt of Irish banks. In fact, he boasted he would never do this. Now he talks about waiting the French President to deliver the growth package that he never even sought in his negotiations on the austerity treaty.

Sinn Féin proposes a three year €13 billion investment package focusing on infrastructure and new enterprises. The money could be sourced from the discretionary portfolio, the National Pensions Reserve Fund, matching funding from the European Investment Bank and an investment by the private pensions sector. It would create 130,000 jobs over three years, potentially save €800 million in social welfare benefits and see a massive increase in revenue receipts. This is the sort of Government-led job retention and creation investment needed. Will the Taoiseach commit to this type of Government-led employment of resources to get people off the dole and stop the awful recurrence of forced emigration? Last year 76,000 emigrated, a total of nine young people every hour since the Government came to power. I was told in Leitrim the other day that half of those aged between 22 and 26 years had left the county. Senior teams cannot field a side; our young people are playing camogie and hurling in Brisbane and Baltimore and their parents are watching to see which child will go next. Will the Taoiseach commit not to rhetoric, playing catch-up with the train that left when he signed up to this bad treaty, but to Government-led investment to get people off the dole and back to work and stop forced emigration?

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