Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on one of the most important issues facing the country. I say this because it would be naive to suggest that everything begins and ends with the economy. While the economy matters, in and of itself it is not the key factor which has led to the current maelstrom. The real issue of significance is the political ideology which underpins and informs economic policy. As thousands of men, women and children know all too well, the Government's particular brand of political economy does not serve ordinary people well, nor does it have their interests at heart. Let us make no bones about this issue; the Government favours austerity over growth and does not have a problem blatantly and defiantly pursuing the weakest and most vulnerable, while unashamedly bailing out banks, bankers and unsecured bondholders to the tune of billions.

Like obedient robots, the Government lacks imagination or any sense of social justice and is willing to slavishly implement the failed policies of the previous Administration, in particular, those crafted by the Fianna Fáil Party. That party's leader and Deputies appear to have developed a severe case of collective amnesia, as shown by the righteous posturing in which they engage almost daily in the House.

A cursory examination of unemployment and emigration figures shows the severe human cost of the failed policies of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. More than 450,000 people are on the live register and thousands more are under-employed, while large sections of the workforce work long hours with poor employment conditions for low rates of pay. The domestic economy is in tatters, with thousands of small and medium sized businesses closing down, while thousands more are barely managing to keep their heads above water. It is estimated that on average nine people emigrate every hour and that more than 200,000 people left the country in the past three years, including 87,000 to date this year. If that were not enough, Government debt has reached €169 billion, an increase of 17% on the 2011 figure.

This is an appalling list of figures and testimony to the severe crisis in which the country finds itself. However, what is truly shocking about the current circumstances is the callous and determined manner in which the Government has deliberately and consciously targeted some of the most vulnerable groups in society. As we know only too well, Government Deputies do not lose much sleep over being part of an Administration that has removed resource teachers from Traveller children while pouring billions into recapitalising the banks and paying unsecured bondholders. The Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, proposes to reduce funding to the home help service by €8 million, thus reducing the provision of care to the most vulnerable. This will result in more people having to avail of full-time care in a hospital setting and increase the hardships faced by the low-paid workers who provide home help services, the overwhelmingly majority of whom are women. Home helps are only a small section of a female labour force that is increasingly characterised by low pay, part-time contracts, uncertainty about working hours and low rates of trade union membership.

The ongoing dismantling of the welfare state is part and parcel of the Government's bizarre logic that austerity will lead to recovery. Its outcome, namely, the privatisation of key public services, has resulted in untold hardship and misery for significant sections of the population. This week, the Irish League of Credit Unions stated that 1.85 million people live on less than €100 per month. Many families are in arrears with their mortgages and have difficulty paying their debts, while many more cannot pay electricity bills and are being cut off. An increasing number of households are finding it hard to make ends meet and put food on the table. What is even more worrying is that a growing number of families with children are at increased risk of poverty. The most recent figures from the Central Statistics Office reveal that since 2008 there has been an increase in the number of families with children at risk of poverty and material deprivation or in consistent poverty. To put this another way, as the Government bluntly implements its austerity policies, rates of poverty and material deprivation continue to increase at an alarming rate for women, children and families.

Adults and children are going without decent winter shoes and proper clothing. Many children do not have a winter coat, rarely eat meat or fish and are going to bed hungry. Given that children do not have an income in their own right, they are dependent on the households in which they live to provide them with basic essentials. Poor children have lower levels of educational achievement, are at increased risk of emotional and behavioural problems and have poor health outcomes. Despite this and other compelling evidence, the Government is not committed to women, children, the vulnerable, the under-employed, the working poor and low and middle income families. On the contrary, it is committed first and foremost to itself and, second, the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, international financiers, unsecured bondholders and the markets.

In my constituency of Cork East, the number of people on the live register has doubled in the past two years. During this time, we have witnessed the almost total destruction of the area's manufacturing base and the obliteration of its construction industry. The end result of this process has been that the once thriving towns of Youghal, Mallow, Cobh, Mitchelstown, Midleton and Fermoy are struggling to survive. Inward investment is non-existent and thousands are dependent on social welfare and other social transfers, with the result that the local economy continues to stagnate. Austerity measures cannot kick-start economic recovery. In a recent series in The Irish Times entitled "How do you fix a broken town?", Youghal's main street is described as having "an air of near devastation", while the commercial centre is in "slow collapse, the result of a sharp downturn in trade". The article continues:

Youghal’s town centre is dying. Unemployment has soared with the closure of old industries, and the economic centre of the town is in danger of collapse. Young people are leaving in search of work elsewhere. Poor planning decisions at the height of the boom have also left it with unsightly and largely empty apartment blocks.

Similar words could be written about most towns. Unfortunately, the series failed to add that many towns have fantastic community groups, sporting organisations and volunteers who help make them what they are.

The image of a town on its knees is a fitting metaphor for the current state of our country. It is the policies of austerity which are being pursued and surgically implemented by Fine Gael and Labour that are causing this state of affairs, and all the pain and suffering that goes with it.

Sinn Féin, in its job strategy document, Investing in Ireland's Future: Create Jobs - Create Growth, clearly shows that there are alternatives. Our children do not have to go to bed hungry, and our poor and vulnerable do not have to live in a constant state of dread and fear. If we are to have a future with dignity and decency, growth and not austerity is the way forward.

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