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Adams warns of impact of Community Employment cuts
Adams welcomes ETA announcement
Noonan in denial over €75 billion Anglo Irish promissory note - Doherty
State assets sell-off proposal shows lack of economic understanding - McDonald

8 February 2012
Adams warns of impact of Community Employment cuts
Sinn Féin President and Louth TD Gerry Adams has warned that the government's planned cuts to the Community Employment scheme will have a "grievous impact on many community based projects and services across the state."

Deputy Adams was speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday evening during a Private Members motion opposing the government's cuts to the Community Employment Scheme during which he pointed to the "disastrous social consequences of the austerity policies of this government."

Deputy Adams said: "These consequences are evident every day in the cuts to essential public services; the numbers of young people leaving our shores; the cuts to DEIS schools; the slashing of school guidance counsellors; the attack on rural communities through the septic tanks debacle; stealth taxes; the crisis in our health service, and now the imposition of cuts to Community Employment schemes which will in effect see the end of many such schemes.

"At the same time the government hands over billions of taxpayers' money to zombie banks - as much as €20 billion last year. Next month €3.1 billion - almost as much as the total cut in the budget - will be paid to Anglo-Irish."

Deputy Adams continued: "The attack on Community Employment Schemes is an attack on vulnerable and disadvantaged communities across the state and on the long term unemployed who are trying to get back to work.

"Community Employment Schemes provide essential services and should be protected against budget cuts.

"The savage cuts introduced in the last Budget means that CE Schemes are threatened with a massive 66% cut in their training and education grants, which means many schemes will not be able to function.

"If Labour Party TDs truly believe that these schemes play a vital role in communities in terms of providing services such as community childcare then they should support this motion."

 

20 October 2011
Adams welcomes ETA announcement
Commenting on today's statement by ETA Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD said: "I welcome the decisive and positive terms of ETA's response to Monday's 'Declaration' in Donostia-San Sebastian by the International Conference group.

"Following our deliberations the International Group expressed the opinion that 'it is possible to end, the last armed confrontation in Europe'.

"We called upon ETA to "make a public declaration of the definitive cessation of all armed action and to request talks with the governments of Spain and France to address exclusively the consequences of the conflict.

"I believe that their statement today meets that requirement and I would urge the governments of Spain and France to welcome it and agree to talks exclusively to deal with the consequences of the conflict.

"These next steps should be about promoting reconciliation, addressing the issue of victims and recognising that a serious effort has to be made to heal personal and social wounds.

"There are other issues which will need to be addressed and which can act as confidence-building measures within the process.

"For example, among these are the issue of prisoners and of demilitarising the environment and of respecting and acknowledging the democratic rights of all political parties and treating them as equals.

"At a time when Batasuna is banned and leaders like Arnaldo Otegi, who is totally committed in my view to peace, are imprisoned, the use of confidence-building measures by the Spanish state is very important."

 

5 October
Noonan in denial over €75 billion Anglo Irish promissory note - Doherty
Sinn Féin finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty has today accused the Minister for Finance of being in denial over the total cost to the State of the Anglo Irish Bank Promissory Note.

Deputy Doherty's comments were made after an exchange today with the Finance Minister during question time in the Oireachtas at which the Minister was asked to confirm that the total cost of the Promissory note would amount to €74.63 billion

Deputy Doherty said: "It is deeply regrettable that the Minister for Finance refuses to come clean on the total cost to the State of the Anglo Irish Promissory Note. On the basis of his response to me today he is in denial.

"New figures provided to me from the Minister for Finance show that the cost of the Promissory note will ultimately be €74.63 billion by the time it is paid off in 2031. This includes the capital repayments, the interest payments to Anglo and the cost of servicing the state's debt in borrowing this sum.

"This is a staggering amount of money, equating to almost half the total government debt this year and over a third of government debt when we reach our peak debt to GDP ratio over the next number of years.

"It is beyond comprehension that while talks are afoot in Europe about what a Greek default would look like, how European banks can be protected, and how Greece can be kept in the Euro and helped to recover, that our government would consider paying out on these Anglo Promissory notes.

"This state cannot afford these sums. It throws into question our ability to manage the rest of our debt. It's time for the government to get off their hands and announce categorically that it is neither willing nor able to pay out on the Anglo-Promissory note. The government must begin immediate negotiations with the ECB to achieve this end."

The table below is based on the data provided by the minister in PQ No 120 which outlines the cost of the capital repayments and the interest. The table also includes a cost of borrowing column which was not included as a column in the PQ response however the cost was provided in the text. The original Note from the Department "Technical Note on Accounting Treatment of Promissory Note 4th November 2010" included a cost of borrowing column.
For years 2011 -2013 the interest on borrowing is 115 million as per the minister's response.
For years 2014 -2031 the assumed interest rate is 4.7%. This was the average cost of funds raised by the NTMA in the bond market in 2009 and 2010, and is a conservative assumption for the early post EU/ IMF programme years.

 

28 September 2011
State assets sell-off proposal shows lack of economic understanding - McDonald
Sinn Féin spokesperson on public expenditure and reform Marylou McDonald has criticised announcements from the government today that it will sell off more state assets if the Troika allows the state to use the additional revenue raised for investment purposes.

Deputy McDonald said the proposal was contradictory and displayed at best a real lack of economic understanding on the government's part, at worst an ideological driven agenda to sell off all the state's valuable assets.

Deputy McDonald said: "The state sold off Eircom back in the late nineties and in doing so gave up valuable infrastructure. Now we are talking about how it is the state that has to invest in areas like broadband, and the state doesn't have either the funds or the infrastructure needed to invest in next generation broadband which is what is needed.

"So to make an announcement that you want to sell off state assets on the one hand to invest the money on the other displays either a startling lack of economic understanding at best, or at worst, an ideological driven agenda to sell off all our state assets.

"If we lose the energy providing networks, we lose the ability to grow a sector which has real earning potential in years to come. In addition, the dividends that these assets return provide valuable revenue to the state year on year. These are assets that former governments and the people of Ireland invested in in the past so they could achieve this status. Why on earth would you sell them off now and what would you invest the money in instead?

"Sinn Féin has pointed out that there are €5.4 remaining reserves in the NPRF that could be used for investment. We can also look at taxation measures that will raise money for investment. Selling off your valuable investments to invest somewhere else is a completely ridiculous and damaging economic proposal to be pursuing."

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