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

I have been raising the issue of the Clearing House Group since I was elected to this Dáil. During the past two and a half years when this issue has been raised, the Taoiseach has been throwing sand in the eyes of the people of this country and the Members of this House, in trying to cover up the fact of an extraordinary level of privileged access to his office and his Government for some of the financial and corporate giants who played a critical part in wrecking not just this economy, but the global economy. They continue to get that access while the groups the Taoiseach has just mentioned do not get access. Throughout the summer, I have been engaging with a survivor of the Magdalen laundries who is enraged at the fanfare surrounding the Government's apology to the Magdalen laundry survivors because when she applied to the education fund that was promised to allow her to access third level education and rebuild her life, she was told that the fund was closed and is not accepting applications. Where is the Clearing House Group for her? What of the man in Dún Laoghaire for whom the Taoiseach obtained a wheelchair a few years ago? He needs a new wheelchair and has been banging down my constituency office door, pleading for one. Where is his Clearing House Group? Where is the Clearing House Group for all of the disability groups and the representatives of workers who pleaded with the Taoiseach for the last two years not to cut vitally-needed resources and not to impose further cuts and austerity on working people, the poor, the unemployed and single parents? Where is their Clearing House Group? Instead, there is privileged access for unbelievable players in the financial markets. It is in the minutes of the meetings. On reads the minutes and one sees names like BoAML. I was trying to figure out who is BoAML - it is Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch was at the absolute heart of the American financial collapse.

Even after everything that has happened, US federal regulators have forced Bank of America, Citibank, Merrill Lynch and so on to pay $8.5 billion in fines after a review of foreclosure abuses, paperwork errors and botched loan modifications that had robbed tens of thousands of American homeowners of their homes between 2009 and 2010, yet we are taking advice from these people. They ask for tax breaks for their companies in areas such as investment funds, capital acquisitions tax, research and development, for executives to send their kids to private schools and so forth. They get them, while groups representing workers, the disabled and single parents plead with the Government not for tax breaks but for no more austerity. Meanwhile, this gang, up to its neck in the global financial crisis and still up to dirty tricks as found out by US regulators, gets exactly what it wants from the Government. It is extraordinary.

What we have discovered from the May minutes is that the representative from the Department of the Taoiseach has stated this is not working. We get down on our knees and give them everything they want, but it is not even working. The representative then tells the Clearing House Group that we need even more radical measures. What does that mean? Does it mean that we have to give them even more tax breaks against the background that they are not even paying 12.5% in corporation tax and some are paying no tax? Any fair person, knowing that the majority of people are being screwed by austerity, stealth taxes and charges, would suggest these guys should pay a little more in extra tax. However, the Government, in budget after budget, gets them to pay less, which does not even deliver jobs. Will the Taoiseach, please, not throw mud in the eyes of the people by claiming a move from 14.6% to 13.6% in the unemployment rate is as a result of the policy of getting down on our knees in front of these people? It is due to the fact that 120,000 people have left the country in the past three years. For every job the Taoiseach comes in here to announce with a fanfare - which I welcome - the reality is that jobs are being lost day in, day out, as he knows well. The GNP, gross national product, figures tell us the reality of what is going in the economy, not the inflated GDP, gross domestic product, figures that relate to the profits of these guys in the Clearing House Group. They are doing well because they have privileged access to the Government and the Taoiseach does whatever they ask, while the rest of the people are screwed to the floor. Give us the Clearing House Group and the bailout for the people. Stop protecting these guys, as has been done for the past decade.

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