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

Is it not the truth, when one strips away the make-up applied by the parties, the Irish Government and the British Government, that the so-called Stormont House agreement is a savage austerity attack on the public sector in Northern Ireland, a state which traditionally suffered from high unemployment and low wages? Is it not also the truth that the Taoiseach went to Belfast and supported Prime Minister Cameron in insisting on the Tory cuts agenda for the working class people of Northern Ireland, an approach that would have received the approval of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher herself? Does the Taoiseach acknowledge that 20,000 public sector jobs will be closed down in the North in the next few years as a result of this agreement and that the biggest single amount of money mentioned is for the purpose of paying for the redundancies of public sector workers? The North has relied on public sector jobs because of the ongoing failure of private capitalism to deliver significant jobs and investment.

Is it not extraordinary that there was united support for one of the centrepieces of the agreement, namely, cuts in corporation tax? Scandalously, these cuts which may be implemented by 2017 are linked with so-called welfare reforms which attack the poorest in the North. How could the Taoiseach connive in misleading the people of Northern Ireland that the same over-reliance on multinational investment in which successive Irish Governments indulged will solve the problems of unemployment and low pay? The main story we have heard regarding the multinationals for several months is about their scandalous involvement in tax scams. They robbed tens of billions of euro that should have been spent on social services and job creation measures from the tax budgets of many countries. Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Irish Republic were outed as tax havens, yet this is put forward as a major advance and a promise of massive job creation. That is a cruel hoax.

Is the Taoiseach aware that the official trade union movement is deeply angry about this? It believes thousands of jobs and millions of pounds will be taken from the public, never to be returned, and that thousands of sacked public servants will face the lowest wages in the United Kingdom or else the everyday humiliation built into the cruel Tory vision of welfare. The inefficient private sector cannot provide enough decent jobs for school leavers and graduates. The North cannot afford to waste the talents of teachers, tourism and transport workers through these redundancies. The trade union movement regards this as a bad deal fit only for a land of pound shops and food shops, rather than the society for which people voted at the last election. Is it any wonder a major public sector strike is being called for 13 March? Private sector workers will also strike and they will be joined by students and community organisations.

The Deputy First Minister rounded on critics of the agreement to accuse them of living in fantasy land, but does the Taoiseach agree that anybody who sells this as anything other than a major austerity attack with serious downsides for working class people, whether Protestant or Catholic, is actually the one living in fantasy land? Working class people need to unite across the existing divide, shake off the sectarian parties on both sides which sell this type of false agreement and fight for real measures to protect the public sector and provide for major public sector investment that can lead to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, as well as homes and public services. As has happened here under the Taoiseach, these areas have been under attack for several years.

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