Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 12, between lines 3 and 4, to insert the following:"(n) advocacy for groups who have been detrimentally affected by the crash of the property bubble and bail out of the financial system.".

I realise that the Government Deputies probably have a lot to talk about tonight, but they will have to talk elsewhere since we are in the throes of very serious business here relating to the National Treasury Management Agency Bill. Our amendment is about the qualifications that should be taken into account to be a member of the National Treasury Management Agency board. The legislation states that six ordinary members shall be appointed by the Minister and the Minister must regard them as having expertise and experience at a senior level in one or more of the following areas: investment, treasury management, business management, finance, economics or economic development, law, accounting and auditing, actuarial practice, risk management, insurance, project management, and corporate finance. Those are all the areas where so-called experts were central to the events that led to the blowing up of the property bubble in this State, to its crash and to the crazed decision that the Irish people should carry the consequences of that crash.

The National Treasury Management Agency is an organisation that manages the most incredible level of public funding in this State. It has massive responsibility for the entire national debt - 120% of gross domestic product, for Government borrowing, for State claims and for the National Pensions Reserve Fund, and it provides management services to the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, which in turn has tens of billions of euro of bad debts for which the people have been criminally made responsible according to the legislation.

We are providing in this amendment that the Minister should also be able to draw members of that agency's board from those who have expertise in "advocacy for groups who have been detrimentally affected by the crash of the property bubble and bail out of the financial system". People who have that expertise would be much more likely to represent the democratic wishes of the taxpayers of this State than many of those who were so-called qualified people according to the legislation as it exists. There are advocacy groups, including those dealing with people in mortgage distress, with the horrific housing crisis and with the huge lack of social and affordable homes, which is creating such immense distress and suffering in our society. There are people who have expertise advocating for these groups, who represent the majority in society, the victims of the profiteering that went on in the property bubble, the victims of the crash and the victims of the bailout. I assume the Government will accept this amendment in view of how absolutely self-evident it is that representatives of ordinary Irish people - of the working class, middle and low income earners, pensioners, the unemployed and the youth - should have representation on this board. We tabled this amendment to make the point that the way the NTMA board is currently made up is not democratic. It should be democratically accountable in a much more direct way to ordinary people and to taxpayers who should have a democratic input into how such massive institutions are run. We are not at all happy with the proposal with regard to the way the power in this respect is to be given to the Minister. We want to show up how one-sided is the Government's approach to the financial crisis and the management of the finances of this State, in that it proposes to include on the board only those professionals or individuals who are so-called experts - the very ones who were central to the creation of the disastrous bubble and the profiteering by bondholders, bankers, speculators and developers in the Irish property bubble, and were then also responsible for the pressure that was put on, and acceded to by, two Governments - the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government and the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government - to make the ordinary Irish people carry the responsibility and the pain and debts that were accrued as a result of that. Sin é.

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