Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Europe Day presents an opportune time to reflect on the state of the European Union. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste have acknowledged that the ongoing economic crisis is having a devastating effect on citizens and communities across this island and Europe. The big question is: what are the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste going to do about this? They are our leaders at this time. As they and other European leaders gather for crisis summit after crisis summit, the dole queues are getting longer and longer. Some 20 million people are unemployed across the eurozone and the situation is even worse for young people. The level of youth unemployment is 30% in this state compared to an average of 24% across the European Union.

Our 30% level of youth unemployment does not take account of the scores of thousands of young people who have had to leave for other parts of the world. The statistics for some of the other so-called peripheral states are even more shocking, with youth unemployment at 55% in Spain, 38% in Italy, 38% in Portugal and 59% in Greece. This state and others like it have borne the brunt of the EU austerity policy.

Yesterday the Taoiseach said he was no fan of austerity. That is like Brian Cody saying he does not support Kilkenny. The Taoiseach is a champion of austerity here and across the European Union. The dire social consequences of the austerity approach will be felt for generations to come. Much has been made of the €6 billion fund established to tackle this issue. With 6 million young people unemployed, however, it is but a drop in the ocean compared to what is required. When compared with the billions of euro put into banks it demonstrates where the priority of EU leaders lies. The focus in the ongoing negotiations was and is on cutting the budget, but increasingly we are hearing verbal acknowledgement that the policy of austerity has failed.

It was in May last year, when President Hollande was elected in France, that the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste became converts to the need for jobs and growth to tackle this crisis. While the language may have changed, there has been no substantive change to the policies being pursued either here or across the European Union. As An tUachtarán Higgins said recently, there is a flaw in the economic model and in the social and political mores of EU leaders. I warmly welcomed his remarks and was quite bemused that the Government also saw fit to welcome them when clearly they were at odds with what it is doing. There seems to be a need, and perhaps an opportunity, for a radical rethink of how our economic crisis is handled. A one-size-fits-all approach will not solve our economic crisis. Getting people off the dole and back to work needs to be prioritised. There is an urgent need to increase the lending capacity of the European Investment Bank, EIB, to stimulate activity in the real economy; to cleanse the European banking system of toxic debts; and to introduce debt-restructuring agreements, including debt write-downs for heavily indebted states. The €10 billion allocated by the European Council to expand the lending capacity of the EIB simply does not go far enough. One of the critical mistakes made in the handling of this crisis was the insistence, by the Government too, that citizens bear the burden of private banking losses. At the very beginning of the Irish banking crisis, Sinn Féin called for bondholders to take the hit. We said that Irish citizens should not have to cover the losses of private bankers and speculators.

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