Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute to the debate on this Bill which we have been informed is in the public interest. It is odd that Second Stage of such important legislation is being forced through the House by means of a guillotine. This reckless decision is unfair to Deputies and members of the public. If the Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, were on the Opposition benches, the decision to use the guillotine would have given rise to an almighty row in the House. The Tánaiste, while in opposition, specialised in dealing in a very forceful manner with matters such as the use of the guillotine. However, he had a completely different tale to tell on the Order of Business. If I had listened to him with my eyes closed this morning, I could easily have mistaken him for a Fianna Fáil or Green Party Minister in the previous Government. Additional time should be provided to discuss this important Bill. This is a further example of the Government breaking a promise and reneging on a commitment.

It is important to set the Bill in context and one could not find a better or, more accurately, worse context than the figures provided in today's report by the Central Statistics Office on the 12 months to the end of the first quarter of 2012. Unfortunately, the report shows that this is a Government engaged in jobs destruction. In the past year, there has been a net elimination of 18,100 jobs in the economy. Government austerity is destroying jobs and despite the so-called jobs budget, jobs initiative and tourism initiative, it has managed to reduce the number of people employed in the economy by 18,100 in the past 12 months.

The CSO report also shows that the long-term unemployment rate increased from 7.8% to 8.9% in the year to the end of the first quarter of 2012 and the long-term unemployed accounted for 60.6% of total unemployment in the first quarter. Further, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has increased from 14.5% to 14.8%. Emigration is also significant and one third of young people are unemployed. Austerity has destroyed employment and will continue to do so because this Government and the preceding Administration extracted huge amounts of money from the economy, thereby ensuring that places of employment, including small businesses and high street shops, continue to close down. Austerity is not working and we now find the Government proposing more austerity measures with this Bill. It is not a bailout for the public in general or for lower and middle income families. This is another austerity measure whereby moneys can be accessed to pay bondholders, investment banks and the like. It is not a stability or a solidarity measure, but an austerity measure. Low income and middle income families will have to bail out the bondholders and the speculators, while very wealthy people will freeload on the backs of those families.

The ESM will have a board in place that will not be answerable to anybody. It will not be answerable to legal redress, to the public or to any political scrutiny. There is a possibility that it may cost us anything up to €11 billion. This measure is a method of ensuring the bondholders and the bankers are paid. The suggestion that ordinary people are being bailed out and will now have a facility to be bailed out is untenable. It is clear that when the EU and this Government refer to bailouts in general and under the ESM, we are bailing out bondholders and speculators. These bailouts involve a good Samaritan helping out a neighbour in trouble. Low and middle income families are being forced to pay the gambling debts of bankers and speculators. The very rich are freeloading on their backs.

There are alternatives and we put them forward in our budget submission last year. The super rich in this country have assets worth €239 billion. They pay no wealth tax and no asset tax of any kind. As the Christy Moore song goes, they are now richer than they ever were before. The Central Statistics Office has shown us that. In 2009 and 2010, the wealthiest 5% in this country earned additional wealth worth €46 billion. They have done well, but they are on an investment strike across Europe. There is €2 trillion uninvested in the EU and £750 billion uninvested in Britain, as well as significant figures in Ireland. Many of these people and their accountants and solicitors are now being thanked by effectively being employed and paid by NAMA.

I will finish on those few words. I will certainly not support the Bill.

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