Clear evidence that austerity commitments directly contradict commitments on growth and jobs
Today at the Joint committee on Finance, Public Expenditure & Reform, Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Finance spokesperson for People Before Profit/ULA told the new Secretary General of the Department of Finance, John Moran, that the Department’s statement of strategy commitments were “unrealisable” and effectively “mission impossible.”
Deputy Boyd Barrett said that the Department’s revised strategy statement for 2011-2014, though full of laudable aspirations, were based on an irreconcilable contradiction between, on the one hand, Troika programme commitments to bail-out(re-structure) the banks and impose swinging cuts, and on the other, commitments to improve living standards and promote growth and employment.
Richard Boyd Barrett said: “This document is full of very admirable aspirations to improve living standards and promote jobs and growth, but they are directly contradicted by the parallel commitments to meet the demands of the Troika austerity and bank-bail-out programme.
The Department can certainly claim considerable “success” if that is the word for it, in meeting the troika targets. The only problem is that meeting these targets has come and will come at the direct expense of improving living standards, promoting growth and creating jobs.
The strategy set out by the Department is mission impossible as it is based on an irreconcilable contradiction between austerity and growth.
Their growth forecasts have been wildly inaccurate and radically downgrading in the last year means that more cuts are likely.
The big question is how did they get it so wrong when so many people were saying cuts and austerity would do major damage to economic growth”.