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

Last weekend I was involved in organising a protest in Wicklow that saw 4,000 people come out and demonstrate at the Avondale Forest Park, the former home of Charles Stewart Parnell, against the Government's plan to sell off the harvesting rights to Ireland's forestry. In that context, while the Taoiseach was in Switzerland, did he speak to any foresters or anyone in the Swiss Government involved in the area of forestry? Had he done so, he might have discovered that the Swiss have a flourishing forestry sector and that a country half the size of Ireland has over 100,000 people working in forestry and would not dream of selling that resource to anyone. While the Taoiseach was rubbing shoulders with the great and the good at Davos, did he meet any representatives of Helvetia Wealth, the Swiss bank, a subsidiary of which is chaired by the former Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, which has expressed an interest in taking over our forests? The Swiss certainly seem to understand the value of forestry. The Taoiseach, while in Davos, should have examined the question of how to manage public forestry properly and how to harness the value of public forestry for the economy.

In the Taoiseach's discussions about Ireland's economic plight and debt position, did he point out to Ms Lagarde, the people from the European Central Bank and those who are overseeing the austerity programme in this country that this year and for the following three years, 20% of all tax revenues in the State will be used to pay off debts? As of next year, this country will bring in more in tax than we are spending, meaning that 20% of all revenues will purely be used to pay off debts. It will not be used to pay nurses and doctors or front-line public sector workers, as the Taoiseach has claimed so often, but for next year and for many years after, we will borrow billions of euro purely to pay off debts, which were largely incurred as a result of the activities of private financial institutions.

Did the Taoiseach make that point to people like Ms Lagarde? We are paying our way and by next year we will be more than paying our way. It is grossly unjust, in that context, for a fifth of our tax revenues, according the Department of Finance figures, to be paid out in meeting the debts of private institutions. Did the Taoiseach point out the gross injustice and economic stupidity of this? Did he tell these people that the process is not sustainable?

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