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

This country has had an unhappy experience with so-called public private partnership. Deputy Boyd Barrett outlined the experience of communities in Dublin which were left high and dry by developers who were supposed to redevelop their areas with the councils. When I was a member of the Committee of Public Accounts some years ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General was highly critical of one bundle of schools built via a PPP where value for money did not materialise. In PPPs, the taxpayer takes the risk while the partner takes the profit.

With regard to amendment No. 19, the Minister of State spent the past hour, up to this tranche of amendments, telling us why State aid and direct investment in public housing via a public agency was a no-no, but now there is no problem with State aid when it comes to making a provision for money to be ploughed into the banks. This is the double standard and the neoliberal philosophy of the troika - the EU, the IMF and the ECB - which are making all these rules to hamstring public authorities for the benefit of private entities, big capitalists, etc., by pushing privatisation and so on. However, they insisted that the people take a hit of €64 billion to rescue private bankers and bondholders. It is a complete contradiction, and that is why our amendment should be supported.

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