Richard Boyd Barrett TD

Figures from the CSO yesterday show the impact of the economic crisis and the failure of the austerity strategy of the government and the Troika. The unemployment rate at the time of the Census in 2011 amongst 15-19 year olds was 59% – up from 26% in 2006. Amongst those aged 20 – 24, the rate was 35% in 2011, up from 13% in 2006. these are the people truly bearing the burden of the bank bailouts.

Joe Higgins, United Left Alliance TD said,“The continued high rate of unemployment, at nearly 15%, means that there is little prospect of a job for many young people. The erosion of demand in the domestic economy – a continuous decline of consumer spending and of employment in construction, manufacturing and retail – caused by cuts in public spending and tax increases on average earners, means that young people have very few oppertunities to get a job. Most of them are on reduced benefit, and are dependent on parents for accomodation. Meanwhile their parents are being hit with tax increases, such as the household tax”.

Richard Boyd Barrett, United Left Alliance TD said,

“With almost 80,000 young people unemployed and 70,000 gone through emigration, we are looking at a lost generation of Irish youth.

The choice is clear. We either continue on the Fine Gael-Labour-Troika route of pouring bailout money into the banks and finance industry, with the prospect of long term poverty facing young people, or we cease payments to banks and bondholders and put resources into job creation in the domestic economy.

The first step on that route is to break from the cuts strategy of the last and future budgets, and to tax the wealthy”.

Political establishment an accessory to crimes of banking elite by making ordinary people not the bondholders suffer the losses

Responding to the arrest of Sean Fitzpatrick (pictured left), former chair of Anglo Irish Bank, Richard Boyd Barrett TD of People Before Profit/United Left Alliance said: “Nobody who has suffered the austerity policies forced on us since the crisis began will shed a tear for Sean Fitzpatrick. The lending practices of his and other banks to developers and speculators were a huge factor in the scale of the crisis the country is in.

“However the response of the government at the time to the emerging banking crisis which is essence has been stood over by this government is in itself criminal. A conscious choice has been made by the political establishment in Ireland backed up by the troika to put people through the ringer in order that bankers here and abroad do not pay for their mistakes.”

Joe Higgins TD, United Left Alliance said: “The banking guarantee of September 2008 stands the most catastrophic decisions made by a government since the foundation of the state. The former Fianna Fáil government should be in the dock alongside Sean Fitzpatrick for seeing to it that those who recklessly lent to Anglo be compensated by a transference of wealth from the working people and poor of this country to them.

“If Sean Fitzpatrick is handed down a jail sentence in three years time, which is how long we are told the process will take place, no sentence of any duration will serve justice. Justice will only be served by non-payment of the odious debts he and other bankers are responsible for.”

Richard Boyd Barrett TD for the People Before Profit Alliance-ULA will today challenge the EU-ECB-IMF “Troika” over the increased poverty, suffering and economic damage caused by their austerity programme at special meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform, at which the Troika representatives will attend.

The meeting commenced at 2pm today and is expected to run for several hours.

Deputy Boyd Barrett, who is Finance spokesperson for People Before Profit-ULA and a member of the Finance Committee said: “The Troika need to be seriously challenged over their definition of “success” when it comes to the so-called “stability” programme for Ireland. How can they define as success a programme that is leading directly to more unemployment, emigration, poverty and suffering for ordinary people. You really have to wonder do ordinary human beings figure at all in the reckoning of these Troika austerity merchants.”

“The European Anti-Poverty Network, for example, has shown recently in their submission to the Troika how the austerity programme has directly contributed to increased unemployment, poverty and social inequality. It just beggars belief that the Troika can talk about “success” and “stability” in this context. It is absolutely clear that the austerity programme has devastated the domestic economy by depressing demand and that this in turn is seriously hampering any prospect of economic growth reviving to the level that would help the country get out of its current dire economic straits.

The stupidity of their agenda is even more apparent, when it is now becoming increasingly clear that austerity policies being demand by the EU authorities in other European countries are now leading to recession across Europe, which will in turn choke off any chance of Ireland having an export-led recovery. Europe is our biggest trading partner. If austerity depresses demand in Europe – as it is doing – and thus chokes off our export markets, and at the same time our domestic economy is being strangled, we are heading towards economic and social disaster.”