In a statement, Richard Boyd Barrett TD, for People Before Profit/United Left Alliance has said the debate raging for the last number of days about future ESM or other funding if the fiscal treaty is rejected was a complete “red herring”.
He said the entire debate was based on the false premise that the current EU-IMF deal or any future ESM arrangement represented a “bail-out” for Irish or European citizens when, in fact, such arrangements were purely bail-outs for the European banking and financial system.
According to Deputy Boyd Barrett, the EU and the IMF would, in reality, insist on funding the Irish state if it required such funding because the fate of the European banking and financial system depended on it.
He said the Fiscal treaty and the ESM were both mechanisms for imposing more austerity and cuts on working people and the less well-off in order to ensure the current and future repayment of the gambling debts of banks and international speculators.
Deputy Boyd Barrett said a No vote was a vote for prioritising job creation, public services and fairness ahead of bail-outs for banker and speculators.
Richard Boyd Barrett said: “The public have been led on a merry dance over the last week about the threat of funding being cut off if we reject the treaty. Apart from being blackmail, it is also utter nonsense – an entirely hollow threat.
Neither, the EU or the IMF has been lending money to this state for the good of the Irish people – rather like the loan sharks they are, they have been shoving the money down our throats to ensure that the gambling debts of bankers and international speculators are re-paid now and in the future.
This is all about protecting banks, speculators and the so-called “markets” (another word for gamblers) and making ordinary people pay for it with further austerity, cuts and privatisation.
The reality is that if this state faced a short-fall in funding the EU and IMF would be insisting that we took further loans because otherwise the European banking and financial system would face collapse. Quite simply, we are being lied to by the government and the yes side when they say the EU or IMF would cut off funding if we reject the treaty.
The entire debate is premised on the idea that first so-called “bail-out” was a good thing and that we might need another. The reality is that the first “bail-out” was a disaster and a second “bail-out” through the ESM, EFSF or the IMF would be equally disastrous unless the entire logic of austerity and bank bail-outs is over-turned. We can only begin to do that if we reject this crazy austerity treaty
The real issue in this referendum is whether we vote to continue the failed and disastrous policy of bank bail-outs paid for with austerity or whether we finally call a halt to his madness and join the growing movement across Europe demanding jobs, economic growth and fairness.”
