Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Burton has thrown down the gauntlet with a disgraceful speech in which she attempted to compare the Deputies who stand in the tradition and carry on the tradition of James Connolly and James Larkin with the extreme right supporters of Marine Le Pen in France. Let us deal with some of the slurs thrown our way.

Who has helped to create the social conditions? Who has helped to create the level of discontent and alienation within French society? Unfortunately, these have pushed millions of people into the arms of the extreme right, whose policies we are completely opposed to. Of course, it was the sister party of Deputy Burton's Labour Party, the Parti Socialiste, led by François Hollande. It is the equivalent of the Labour Party and its sister organisation in France. That party stood over a social system. It gave its blessing to and ran a capitalist system that transferred more and more wealth within French society into the hands of the super-rich and the 1% elite at the same time as unemployment among the youth went to all-time high levels and poverty in urban and rural areas reached a level not seen in recent times. Unfortunately, this pushed millions of people in the direction of the extreme right, which posed as an anti-establishment force in that country. There is a clear need to build a strong and powerful radical left within French society. I will deal with the question of its approach towards the European Union and membership of the Union.

There is no doubt that following the victory of the presidential candidate who won last Sunday night, there was a sigh of relief among tens of millions of ordinary people throughout Europe precisely because it was not Le Pen. Deputy Burton has gone beyond that. She has given a political blessing and has underscored her support for the new French President, who is, Deputy Burton maintains, a politician of the centre. If he is a politician of the centre, he is a politician of what Tariq Ali would describe as the extreme centre. What is his programme? He stands for the slashing of 120,000 civil service jobs. He stands for the slashing of corporation tax from 33% down to 25%. He is a strong supporter of what is known in France as labour reform, which might better be described as labour counter-reform, in other words, new measures enacted by law that would allow employers to more easily increase the hours of their workforces, sack and dismiss workers and cut pay and pensions.

Deputy Burton's political ally, Mr. Macron, is not going to do this by means of democratic processes through the French Parliament. He has made it clear that he intends to introduce those policies by Government decree. This is the approach that has made a cropper of Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. The revolutionary traditions of 1968, when workers poured out onto the streets in their millions to defeat this reactionary agenda, can and will, I hope, rise again.

Much has been said of the victory of Mr. Macron on Sunday night but the extent to which fear was a factor has not been sufficiently commented on. Fear of economic uncertainty and xenophobia built the Le Pen vote. However, fear of Le Pen and the far right rallied people behind Macron. It was that rather than an endorsement of his agenda that brought his victory.

The lesson of recent history, to which the Deputy is blind, is that the politics of the extreme centre paved the way for the electoral victories of the extreme right. That is how it happened in the United States. The policies of Barack Obama, which concentrated more and more wealth in the hands of the 1% at the expense of working people and the poor in society, helped to prepare the ground for the extremely unfortunate victory of Donald Trump in the presidential election late last year. The policies of the extreme centre of Macron in France can pave the way for Le Pen in 2022 unless a genuine radical left alternative is built within that society. The mobilisation that can and, I hope, will take place against his so-called labour reform offer such an opportunity, because the candidate of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, commanded almost 20% of the vote after the first round in France. There is considerable potential there.

What positions should he take on the European Union? Clearly, a candidate does not speak to those discontented millions and win them away from Le Pen by saying that he endorses the European Union and the inequality that has been sanctioned by the European project. A candidate must make it clear that he stands for a break with the current set-up, a completely and utterly different Europe, a Europe for the millions rather than the millionaires.

Unfortunately, the Deputy was not here to hear my reply, but I think her points have been answered comprehensively. I will conclude by making some points about the Government Brexit document.

Reference is made in it to a rainy day fund and to a plan to attract financial investment. Today, a report was issued by the Swiss-based Financial Stability Board which showed that Ireland is now the fourth largest shadow banking hub in the world, behind the United States, the Cayman Islands and Japan. There are €2 trillion worth of non-banking financial assets in this country, which is eight times gross domestic product, and at least a third has little or no oversight according to official sources. I am not saying that all of the financial investments that the Government plans to win from London is in that category, but much of it is. It is not a recipe for more jobs. It is a recipe for more brass plate operations down at the IFSC.

To have real jobs, we need public sector investment in areas that are crying out for it as well as jobs and service provision such as housing and health. We undermine our ability to organise that investment if €1 billion is put aside in 2019, another €1 billion in 2020 and another €1 billion in 2021. The bulk of that money should be invested now in public sector enterprises. It will pay back the Exchequer because taking people off social welfare makes a saving and workers will be paying taxes, which is also an input. They need to be well paid jobs.

The Public Service Pay Commission reported yesterday. It mentioned Brexit ten times. On page 27 alone, Brexit is mentioned six times. The Government is drawing from that report and other sources and using those examples as a tool for holding down the wages and conditions of workers. We have seen its position regarding the public sector pay negotiations. It wants to retain the unpaid hours, increase pension contributions and maintain a two-tier wage structure. We say the opposite. The FEMPI measures need to be completely unwound. We need to reverse the pay and pension cuts immediately. We need cost of living increases for public sector workers that take into account the hikes in rent and accommodation costs. If these changes cannot be won at the negotiation table, and it is clear from the Government's position that this is the case, the ground needs to be prepared to follow the example of the Dublin Bus and Luas workers and that of the gardaí. If they are not granted at the negotiation table, they need to be won through strong and well organised industrial action.

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