Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to be in a position to support the motion proposed by the Technical Group and co-signed by Sinn Féin Members. It is a sensible and timely motion that Ireland would support the call for a debt conference.

Somebody in my office brought to my attention the headline in one of our newspapers about the Minister, Deputy Noonan, saying he broadly supported the concept of a debt conference. My response at the time was, "Sure, what else could he say?" because it was completely in Ireland's interest to support such a call. It would be in Ireland's interest if such a conference happened and was fruitful. Therefore, a Minister for Finance doing anything other than welcoming and being supportive of such a call would have been quite bizarre. However, as events unfolded and we got closer to the election, we have seen the Minister, Deputy Noonan, starting to retract and backtrack on what he reportedly said at that meeting. The Taoiseach has come out very clearly and said the Government would not support the idea of a debt conference.

I cannot get my head around that because this is not about setting ultimatums for our fellow Europeans or trying to have a showdown with them. It is about acknowledging that in many member states across Europe there is an issue with a large level of debt in member states and in some cases that level of debt being unsustainable. It is about the first course of action to deal with the problem. In any situation where a person has a serious problem the first way to deal with it is to acknowledge that there is a problem in itself. An addict addicted to a substance must acknowledge that he or she is addicted. In this case Europe is addicted to too much debt and to the austerity policies that heap more crippling debt upon debt.

A debt conference in itself is the signal that Europe is confirming that what has happened up to now is no longer the path we can go down into the future. We have to acknowledge that something needs to be done about the high level of indebtedness of some member states.

How can that issue be resolved? There are as many proposals for resolving the over-indebtedness of Europe as there are people in this Chamber. However, it is not about which proposal is better than the other, whether it is the Greek academics' proposal about buying up debt of member states above 50% of GDP and having a zero coupon interest rate applied to that over a period until the state's economy is large enough to buy back that debt, the other proposals over debt swaps, or proposals such as bonds that would be linked to GDP growth and so on. There are many proposals and we have our own that have been debated in this Chamber about retroactive recapitalisation and about the ECB holding on to the Anglo Irish Bank promissory note bonds - the debt that has been turned into Irish bonds.

All of the issues and alternative ideas could be debated in a debt conference. The fact that the Government does not want to talk about this is deeply alarming. There have been suggestions over the past number of days that the Government does not want to talk about it because it fears that if the Greeks get even a bit of what they want, it will lead to an onslaught in Ireland and Spain, where Podemos is challenging to be the lead party in the next Government. It will challenge the establishment parties that supported the austerity programme and did not look for the type of debt restructuring and write down sought by Greece. Therefore, the argument is that the Government has taken a strategic, selfish interest not to pursue this avenue out of electoral ambition and fear. I cannot subscribe to the notion because it requires belief in a lack of basic humanity and decency in the Members of the Government. It is for another reason the Government has taken this direction, which is about trying to be the best boys in the class and putting clear water between Ireland and Greece. We have heard from Ministers time and again that Ireland is not Greece. Let us state other obvious facts, as if it makes any difference, that sterling is not the euro and a horse is not a donkey. Of course Ireland is not Greece, there are different circumstances in Greece and Ireland and the debt of Greece is unsustainable. No one can argue it can be sustainable when it reaches 175% of GDP but Ireland is the fourth most indebted country in Europe. Ireland has a debt of 110% of GDP and would be close to 120% but for a restructuring of how we deal with counting GDP according to the new EUROSTAT rules.

Ireland is looking to sell its national airline and is trying to sell shares in AIB to write down its debts. Ireland has cut social welfare payments to service its debts and make it more sustainable. Ireland is examining these options and has depleted the National Pensions Reserve Fund, which was established for the sole purpose of dealing with the pensions timebomb. The pensions timebomb has not been defused and still remains but the problem is that when we call on the resources to deal with it, they will not be there to make our debt sustainable. The Government talks about debt sustainability as if it is a simple equation. There has been debate about the sustainable level of GDP. There are simplistic arguments about whether 100% or 120% is too high. There is a statistical sustainability and social sustainability. It is a question of what measures the Government will take to make debt sustainable. What is acceptable for a society to squeeze the economy to make debt sustainable?

We see it happening around us. The Minister talked earlier about how Syriza is preparing to provide food stamps to the most deprived in Greece yet he did not mention the number of people living in deprivation in this State. Nor did he mention that hundreds of people are on hospital trolleys and that children in my constituency cannot get access to life-saving medication because the Government believes it too expensive. These are the genuine issues and decisions the Government must take to make debt sustainable. A question I have not heard answered is why we do not support the call from Syriza. It is on its own at this point. I have had the opportunity to read much of what the Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said. I congratulated him on the night he was elected having invited him many years ago, on behalf of Sinn Féin, to this country to talk about debt and solutions in Ireland. Listening to what he has to say, he is very calm and sensible and knows his stuff. The best interest in resolving the debt crisis is not about member states alone. This must be dealt with across Europe.

I was looking back at speeches from previous times, particularly in 2012 when the Euro Area Loan Facility (Amendment) Bill was before the House. It loaned €130 billion to Greece. The Minister said:

I do not understand the Sinn Féin position. Its Members weep for Greece. They weep for hungry children and families who have been bereaved because of the high suicide rate but then they will vote against the provision of the €130 billion that will allow education, social welfare and health services to continue. They weep, cry and get passionate about conditions in Greece but they purport to deprive the country of the very aid it requires.

The victory of Syriza shows us that €240 billion aid was given to Greece and €27 billion of it went to the Greek people, with the rest, 89%, going to debt servicing and repayment. I agree with the Minister's concluding comments in his speech in 2012:

This is a time for unity among euro area countries to try to ensure stability within the euro area. Ireland must play its part and stand in solidarity with its fellow euro area member states. It is in the interests of the country, the euro area, the European Union as a whole and the broader world economy.

He was saying that when he wanted us to sell us the idea of heaping more debt on an indebted country. He should say that today when there are people in Greece willing to stand up and say 'No more', willing to say that we will not allow tinkering around the edges but have gone on a crusade to try to convince those who have been wedded to austerity and the idea of more debt on indebted nations that the position is folly. It is the responsibility of the Government to stand up and say that enough is enough and to ask for a resolution, not on a member state basis but across the European Union. There should be no fear and hesitation in the Government asking to talk about these issues with its European partners.

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