The IMF/EU ‘bailout’ deal will be voted on in the Dáil today. Shame on those who will side with the bankers and bondholders against the interests of the people. There is a protest outside the Dáil at 12.30 today. Bígí linn.
The government’s commitment to accepting the IMF/EU monies is a decision that will buckle the state and it’s people. And as for the EU and IMF! Both are behaving like loan sharks - extending credit at extortionate rates to pay back German, French and British bondholders.
What Fianna Fáil and the Greens are signing us up to is without precedent. The EU and the IMF are behaving like loan sharks - extending credit at extortionate rates to enable us to pay off the bondholders – German, French and British financiers. The EU and IMF efforts to force the Irish state to pump the last of its wealth and savings – the National Pension Reserve Fund – into its failed banking system is an international scandal.
The government’s commitment to accepting and drawing down the EU/IMF monies will buckle the state and its people. Ireland does not need the EU/IMF loan; it needs a new government at the helm with a brand new vision. Bondholders need to be cut loose from the states sovereign debt. It’s not our debt to pay. Anglo must fall on its sword. AIB and Bank of Ireland must come under full state ownership and be amalgamated if necessary. The deficit reduction period commitment must be extended to 2016. Growth through job creation must become the top policy priority. And socially regressive measures such as using the National Pension Reserve Fund to fund bank bondholders, the cut in minimum wage and a dogged refusal by the political establishment to introduce a wealth tax must be reversed.
Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has described Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore’s declaration that he intends to pay himself a whooping €190,000 a year if in government after the next election as a “shocking statement of intent”.
Ms McDonald said “At a time when families across the country are struggling just to keep the lights on and food on the table the Labour Leader announces he intends to pay himself a whooping €190,000 a year if in government after the next election. Under his stewardship government Ministers would enjoy an annual basic salary of €161,000 a year, that’s nearly 5 times the average industrial wage! Interestingly his Fine Gael partners in crime have refused to outline their own planned pay scales in government.
“Government ministers’ and the higher echelons of the civil service have an outlandish sense of entitlement with both groups earning several multiples of what the people they are elected to represent and work on behalf of. The math’s of this equation simply doesn’t add up.
“Sinn Féin in it’s pre Budget submission to government called for ALL public sector salaries to be capped at €100,000 per year, that’s three times the average industrial wage and a more than generous wage expectation for any government minister, semi-state CEO or senior civil servant.
“The current crisis has taught us that paying big bucks does not deliver top class semi-state chiefs’, civil servants’ or government ministers’. Sinn Féin wants to once and for all end the culture of cronyism and greed still rife in public life and unlike the Labour Leader we lead by example.” ENDS
Note: Sinn Féin published its pre Budget submission last month, to download click on http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/19445 The document entitled ‘There is a better way’ is fully costed and endorsed by independent economists. It plans to cut the deficit by over €4.5 billion in 2011. Sinn Féin proposes a range of taxation measures aimed at high earners, the abolition of wastages in public spending and the transfer of €7 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund for a 3.5 year state wide investment programme to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
Two of the document’s Public Spending Savings
- Cap ministerial salaries at €100,000; TDs’ salaries at €75,000; and senators’ salaries at €60,000 – Saves €6 million
- Cap the maximum salary of public servants and employees in semi-state bodies at four times the entry rate (three times the average industrial salary) €100,000 – Saves €350 million
