RISE IN UNEMPLOYMENT LEVELS
Posted on April 29, 2010 at 07:58 PM
SPEECH ON THE LABOUR PARTY PRIVATE MEMBERS MOTION ON A STRATEGIC INVESTMENT BANK WEDNESDAY 28TH APRIL 2010 Unemployment levels have trebled in two years from under 5% to nearly 14%. The live register stands at 436,000 with 32% youth unemployment. 40,000 people net left the country in 2009. The ESRI estimates a further 60,000 will emigrate this year. That brings us back to the worst years of the 1950’s when Ireland was drained of its youth and became a conservative backwater. Irresponsible banking, irresponsible regulation and an irresponsible government have contributed enormously to the present domestic crisis. The Government has no answer other than to bail out the banks. We must not allow the country to slip back into stagnation and despair as happened so often in the past. The first priority to begin to get the wheels of the economy turning again is to stop the haemorrhage of jobs and to find new ways to create employment. The Labour Party has put forward a stimulus package to intervene to retain existing jobs, to provide training, education and re-skilling for those who lose their jobs and to provide incentives and resources for the creation of new sustainable jobs. Central to job retention and job creation is a reliable credit flow. The existing private banking system has been reckless, greedy and irresponsible. It has failed the ordinary citizen in the street as it has failed corporate Ireland. For years the banks splurged like drunken sailors. Now despite the guarantee of €500 billion and the massive recapitalisation by the taxpayer they are still incapable of providing a steady flow of capital to those businesses that desperately need it. The State cannot allow the private banking sector to gamble with the future of the nation’s economy as it did in the past and undermine the wellbeing of its citizens. In any case, the private banks remain so impaired that they are not capable, for the foreseeable future, of carrying out the lending role which is their main reason for existence. It is essential the State establish its own public Strategic Investment Bank. This would be the vehicle for ensuring a constant and secure flow of funds to the key business and job creating section of the economy. At present approximately one million people or 64% of the private sector workforce or 50% of the entire workforce are employed by small and medium businesses. These SME’s are the life blood of our economy. However, they are being starved of a cash flow and the banks are simply refusing them capital for development or expansion. The former ICC and ACC banks in Ireland are good models for a Strategic Investment Bank. Likewise there are similar banks in other countries. Finally, the Strategic Investment Bank should be the vehicle for drawing down moneys from the European Investment Bank and the European Development and Reconstruction Bank for use in the Irish economy for development purposes.
