Government condemned for falsely claiming bill is purely “technical”
In a statement, Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Finance spokesperson for the United Left Alliance has said he will call for a vote on an amendment he has submitted for the final stage of the Bretton Woods Agreements amendment Bill 2011, which will be debated at 18.34 in the Dáil today.
Deputy Boyd Barrett’s amendment seeks to delete all provisions of the bill and replace it with a call for Ireland to suspend its membership of the IMF pending the full democratic reform of the organisation.
Deputy Boyd Barrett said: “The government had been entirely dishonest in the debate around the bill to date – suggesting it was purely technical in nature, and therefore of little significance – when in fact it is a deeply political bill of considerable significance.”
This bill is a cosmetic and insincere effort to rehabilitate the legitimacy of the IMF, which has been badly and justifiably discredited over recent years, for its role in enforcing neo-liberal economic policies on weak and troubled economies – with disastrous consequences.
This bill has been presented as a minor technical democratic reform of the IMF, when in fact it seeks to renew the battered credibility of the IMF, while in actuality maintaining the total dominance and veto power of the US and big western powers within its structures
The IMF is a totally undemocratic tool of foreign policy for the US and big western powers, which has promoted and enforced policies around the globe that have contributed significantly to the current global economic crisis.
The IMF has helped drive literally millions of people further into poverty and despair in Africa, South America and Asia – wrecking their economies and societies in the interests of the big powers and western multinationals.
The IMF is now trying to work their neo-liberal witchcraft in Ireland and other countries such as Greece and it will have the same disastrous consequences here. More people will be driven into poverty and unemployment, and more of our vital state assets and natural resources will be gobbled up by the corporate elites that the IMF represents.
It is typical of the bankrupt policy of this government that they want to slip this bill through without debate to please their IMF masters to whom they have abdicated control of this country’s economic and social future.”
