Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with my colleague, Deputy Brady.

This weekend the European Council will meet to discuss the multiannual financial framework for the EU, as the Taoiseach said. The MFF will shape and direct the financial policies and priorities of the EU for the best part of the next decade. It will have a significant impact on the lives of ordinary workers and families in Ireland. The discussions on the MFF come at a time when member states are still reeling from months of battling with the Covid-19 epidemic and with the significant social and economic shocks that have arisen as a result of the pandemic. This is, therefore, perhaps the most critical multiannual budget in the history of the EU.

It is essential that the mistakes of the past, made in the face of another seismic crisis, are not repeated. Ten years ago we faced a different crisis, an unprecedented recession as a result of the banking crisis. The decisions taken and the political choices made at that time were undoubtedly the wrong ones. Austerity was chosen over stimulus and investment, and across the EU ordinary citizens paid the price. Economic recovery was stifled, jobs and incomes were obliterated and the draconian fiscal rules allowed right-wing governments to cut vital public services when investment was so badly needed. In Ireland, we are still living with the devastating results of those bad choices. The scale of the harm done is most acutely felt in the profound damage inflicted on our health services and housing system. The austerity era also shaped an economy that is deeply unfair and where hard-working people see their incomes hoovered up by the crippling cost of living.

The experience of ordinary workers and families over the last ten years shows us that the EU's budget for the next decade, and its response to Covid-19, cannot be shaped by the policies of slash and burn. Covid-19 is a crisis. Crises bring challenges and tragedy, but they also bring opportunities and hope for the future. With this multiannual budget the EU has a big opportunity to turn away from the dead-end fiscal policies of neoliberalism and privatisation and to take the first steps in creating a new era of investment in the well-being of workers and families and delivering prosperity for all.

The President of the European Council has prepared a revised plan, and it is not fit for the purposes I have set out. The proposal combines the recovery fund with the seven-year budget. This creates a financial muddle in which essential programmes, such as the Common Agricultural Policy and social expenditure, are put in direct competition with Covid-19 recovery funding. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a worse outcome for workers, farmers and small businesses in Ireland and across Europe. The proposed rebates for Germany, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands miss an opportunity to spend the not inconsiderable resources of the EU on the basis of genuine, targeted, objective need.

I too welcome the new €5 billion Brexit reserve, but I am deeply concerned about the new EU taxes that are proposed. It appears that those in the EU who are resistant to progressive change are determined not to let a good crisis go to waste. Of course, marrying the recovery, our climate objectives and a new green deal is the correct path, but that in turn must also be married with social justice. We cannot have a regime of taxation that falls on those least able to pay and which does little, if anything, to deal with the real climate crisis coming down the tracks. I am concerned that the pathway we are seeing is the wrong one. Ordinary families and workers cannot be made to shoulder the cost of this emergency, as they were forced to carry the cost of the banking collapse. That would be unjust, unfair and reckless for the future of Ireland.

The Irish Government must be to the fore in arguing for a new departure for the people of Europe. The choice is clear. We can have a new decade shaped by the failures and hardships of the past or we can have a new decade of opportunity, growth and prosperity. This time of crisis can be the time when the work of building a new and equal Europe finally begins. This is a rare chance for real change and it is a chance that should not be wasted.

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