PEARSE DOHERTY IN THE DAIL THIS MORNING
12:45AM DAIL DEBATE UPDATE: DONEGAL TD Pearse Doherty has launched a scathing attack on the Government in a Dail debate tonight ahead of emergency legislation to agree a new deal with the European Central Bank.
The Gaoth Dobhair politician, Sinn Fein’s finance spokesman, joined other opposition TDs in criticising the Government over its plans to take on €40Bn debts.
In a speech to the Dail – riddled with interruptions and heckles from the Government benches – Doherty criticised Finance Minister Michael Noonan over how he had handled the deal.
This will see IRBC – Anglo Irish Bank – liquidated. The Government will take on the debts and pay them off over 27 years.
Doherty said 850 Irish employees will lose their jobs ”yet they were informed through Bloomberg (news agency) that their jobs were gone.”
The Government was rushing through the legislation; giving opposition TDs just a few minutes each to oppose it.
“You didn’t even tell your cabinet colleagues…. and at 12 o clock midnight we are rushed in here to protect the state,” complained Deputy Doherty.
The Donegal TD was then heckled by Minister Brendan Howlin.
“They haven’t read it and very few understand the consequences of it,” said Doherty of Labour’s TDs.
He said our children and our grandchildren will be left to pay off the debts of “criminals in Anglo Irish Bank for many years to come.”
As TD Doherty was heckled again, he responded to one Government TD: “Go back to the bar.”
The Ceann Comhairle interjected on several occasions to allow Deputy Doherty to speak, warning one of them: “The next time you will be going out that door.”
“This is the type of politics that Fianna Fáil had practised for far too long”, said the Sinn Féin TD.
He said his party had no objection to seeing Anglo Irish go as long as the promissory notes worth billions went with them.
Independent TD Shane Ross then backed the Donegal TD, saying he was right in what he said about Minister Noonan’s ‘secrecy’ surrounding the deal.
In a statement after the Government and Fianna Fail voted through the legislation, Deputy Doherty said the government is repeating the mistakes of the past in rushing through unclear, far-reaching banking legislation.
“After nearly two years of negotiations the government has succeeded only in achieving a farcical situation. Every last cent of the Anglo-Irish debt is to be repaid. That much is clear.
“This is a humiliating failure for the government. Having promised change they are now repeating exactly the same mistakes as Fianna Fáil.
“The role of the ECB in aiding the chaos shows that the government has chosen Frankfurt’s Way.
“We need a write-down of this debt so that the billions tied up can be used to create jobs and protect the vulnerable. Sinn Féin was the first to raise the issue of the Promissory Notes and we have consistently called for them to not to be paid.
“The only thing clear tonight is that there is no write-down and that the debts are being formalised as a sovereign debt.
“Tonight, this debt becomes as much as Labour’s and Fine Gael’s legacy as it is Fianna Fáil’s. This government is repeating the mistakes of the past.
“Only last June the government claimed it had achieved a EuroGroup commitment to separate banking and sovereign debt. Now we know we are to adopt the Promissory Notes as formal sovereign debt.
“There is no clarity tonight that the agreement that might be struck will actually improve the debt situation for the state or critically to reduce the crippling austerity working people are labouring under. There is nothing yet to suggest that one Garda station will remain open or one rural school not having to close because of this so-called deal.”