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

This Government is selling off Ireland to foreign vulture capitalists. The Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, accused the former Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government of economic treason, but that economic treason continues under the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government as the country is sold off to foreign vulture capitalists with Deputy Eamon Gilmore as Tánaiste. Mortgages on homes, shopping centres, business premises and indebted farms are being flogged off at a discount by the Government. The policies of Michael Davitt and James Connolly must be revisited to stop this.

When the crash came and the banks failed, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party borrowed billions of euro and paid off, in full, the big international gamblers who had lent to the banks. The Irish people were burdened with huge debt repayments for generations. The Tánaiste called it economic treason. In addition, when the neoliberal or extreme capitalist tax base they had put in place collapsed, they borrowed more money abroad instead of increasing income tax and imposing wealth tax on the super rich, most of whom made a fortune out of the boom and have continued to do so. For every developer who lost a million euro, another wealthy person has a million euro or more in cash. Savage cuts and austerity were put in place.

The new Government was going to do the devil and all, including burning bondholders, and it said it would be Labour's way, not Frankfurt's way. However, there were no significant tax impositions on the rich. Instead, regressive home taxes were imposed and water taxes are planned for householders. The burning of bondholders, of course, was out. Savage cuts were continued to services, the welfare system and pay and pensions to service the increased foreign debt. More money borrowed abroad and was put into banks by the new Government which had said they would not get one more red cent.

National debt rose to 120% of all national production, the highest in the developed world. Now €9 billion a year, or €750 million a month, is being paid out by the Exchequer to service the national debt. Frankfurt's way has prevailed. Frankfurt then decided that not only would the national debt have to be serviced, but reducing the budgetary deficit to 3% of GDP would not be enough, and the structural deficit would have to be eliminated. Again, the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government capitulated to the fiscal treaty, although though it is grossly unfair to Ireland.

At current meagre growth rates, more than €4 billion a year will have to be paid back, mainly to foreign investors, in addition to the €9 billion debt servicing I mentioned earlier. Yesterday's EU report on Ireland states that to eliminate the structural deficit by 2018, as required by the treaty, we must change from a deficit of 4.8% of GDP this year to a surplus of 4.9% in 2018, involving the extraction of a further €14.5 billion out of the economy. Given the Government's capitulation to the fiscal treaty, there will be at least another four years of particularly savage austerity and the continuation of misery, austerity budgets, low growth and emigration into the indefinite future.

The sell-off has continued and, as part of that, in July 2011, that financial wizard, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, sold €1.12 billion of Government shares in Bank of Ireland to Wilbur Ross and a North American consortium. Now the shares are worth €3.8 billion and Wilbur Ross thinks the Minister and Richie Boucher are marvellous. Why would he not think that? Without any risk, he has made a huge profit of €2.7 billion. The reason the shares rose is that investors had been assured by the Minister that Bank of Ireland was a pillar bank, supported by the Government. The Minister saved Wilbur Ross and his vulture capitalist friends a further €325 million at the expense of the State when he voluntarily sold €1.3 billion in preference shares, which the bank could not redeem, to a third party.

Yesterday during Leaders' Questions, the Taoiseach told me that Mr. Ross's investment in Bank of Ireland meant there was less of a capitalisation requirement for the taxpayer. That is totally untrue. The sale of €1.12 billion in State shares had no effect on capitalisation. It merely meant that those shares were replaced by €1.12 billion of shares held by this North American consortium. I call on the Taoiseach to correct the record of the House. It is a disservice to democracy if a Taoiseach can tell a blatant untruth to the House to cover up the fact that Wilbur Ross and his vulture capitalist associates walked away with €2.7 billion euro of the people's money because of the ideological position of the Government on private banking.

However, there is more to come. Next week, the liquidators of IBRC are to sell the roofs from over the heads of 13,500 Irish people to foreign vulture capitalists at a huge discount. The Government has refused to give the homeowners the protections available to customers of the Irish banks. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, who met the Lone Star cowboys in Davos, thinks it might reduce the selling price if they were given that protection. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, told me during Leader's Questions that because the vultures were getting a discount, they would be expected to go easier on distressed mortgage holders. Does she think we are all fools?

The State owns 90% of AIB and Permanent TSB. As the Labour Party-Fine Gael Government is ideologically committed to privatising banks, the Minister will sell off these banks before the next election. Given the Government approach, all those holding mortgages with these State banks are in danger of being sold off as part of the privatisation.

The recently screened television documentary, "Who's Buying Ireland?" featured vulture capitalist funds which are buying up assets all over the country. NAMA is now in on the game also. NAMA has acquired €74 billion in bank loans and its CEO said it is now moving into the phases of managed disposal of property and loan assets. Its strategy is sell them off to foreign capital. NAMA currently has 1,000 Irish properties for sale. In short, mortgages on homes, shopping centres, business premises and indebted farms are being flogged off at a discount by this Government to these foreign vulture capitalist firms.

However, that is not all. The neoliberal Labour Party, through its Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resource, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, has sold off Bord Gáis to foreign capitalists and is committed to further sales. As a result of the continuation of this economic treason, the amount of money lost to the economy - money generated by the work of Irish people who are going abroad now and in future years - will be catastrophic.

This will include mortgage and loan repayments by Irish residents and an increase from €9 billion to €13 billion in Government debt servicing costs as soon as the fiscal treaty kicks in. This money will not be circulating in Ireland, generating jobs and sales here. It will be doing so in other parts of the world or sitting in the bulging bank accounts of foreign companies. Worse still, these companies will be able to increase repayment demands on these loans in order to suck more money from Irish people. They will be able to impose increased mortgage repayments and upward-only rent reviews. They will be able to repossess Irish homes and businesses. In other words, the equivalent of the old rack-renting absentee landlord will be able to deploy the modern equivalent of the battering ram. This is further economic treason. This Government needs to be reminded of the words of James Connolly and Michael Davitt. Furthermore, Connolly's social and economic policies must be implemented. We need a new reconquest of Ireland by its people - a new leadership of the labour movement and the people.

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