Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The media should take on board some of the points we are making too because we have led the way on important debates, including, for example, the issue of corporate tax avoidance. Whatever the Minister might think about our policies in that regard, it is a serious problem. Even mainstream economists are saying the distorting effects on our economy of profit shifting by multinationals are obvious to see. Those effects are such that we have had to create a new measure of the economy, namely GNI*, which we have because we cannot trust the GDP or GNP figures. Perhaps the socialist left has a point.

I suggest a few other things should be considered. The cosy consensus is to be prudent but, as Deputy Murphy said, "prudence" in that context means another reason to keep public spending to a minimum. If it goes over the top, there might be something called "overheating", which Deputy Michael McGrath says we must watch out for. Where are the signs of overheating? Is there rampant wage inflation? There is not. That is usually a sign of an overheating economy. In fact, even under the unravelling of the austerity cuts, wages will still not have reached the levels they were at before the crash in 2008 by the end of the current wage agreement. There is no sign of rampant wage inflation. Where, then, is this overheating?

I do not mean there are no dangers in the economy. Obviously, there are. They are the same dangers to which we have been pointing all along and the same dangers which proceeded the last crash. The first is the tax haven model and its distorting effects, which I have already mentioned. It creates a vulnerability in our economy that if even one of these big firms pulled out, there would be serious trouble. That is not a sustainable model. We have to transition away from it quickly and before it backfires very badly.

One area in which the economy is overheating is the property sector. Where have we heard that before? The Government is quite happy to be prudent when it comes to the public investment and spending we need in areas like housing, infrastructure and health which would actually create buffers for our economy when the cycle comes around. Any notion, by the way, that there will be no bust in the future is fantasy. It will come and the only question is when it will happen. The place there is evidence of overheating is, of course, the property sector yet there is no talk by the Minister of prudence there. In fact, the Government's policies are actively facilitating speculation by property developers. The Government handed them the property sector via NAMA and is now doing absolutely nothing to stop the rampant and blatant speculation which is driving up the cost of accommodation.

If anything will create conditions for overheating of wage demands, it is that, but it is also what is driving the necessary labour force out of the country. The young people, who we need to restore the infrastructure, services and housing in the country, are leaving because the Minister has allowed property speculators to become rampant again - the very thing that led to the last crash.

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