State Assets Firesale was Pre-Determined says WP April 20, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Workers' Party.trackback
Statement from the WP.
The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has said that the report of the Review Group on State Assets and Liabilities, led by economist Dr. Colm McCarthy, proposes to hand all the state’s commercial assets to the very individuals who have landed the Irish people in the present mess.
Mr. Finnegan, remarking that the Workers’ Party was the only political party in the state to make a formal submission to the review group, said that it was incredible that the prime advocates of privatisation such as Minister Leo Varadkar had not seen fit to put their views on paper. “I can only assume that failed to do so because they knew that the fire sale of assets would be the only issue on the cards for McCarthy and his group”
“The most pressing need for the Irish people, the Irish economy, and the Irish economic recovery is the creation of jobs. Wholesale privatisation, as advocated by McCarthy and preached by the IMF, is a recipe for job losses and massive asset stripping”, said Mr. Finnegan.
“The Irish people have invested heavily in our commercial state companies over many years. They exist in vital areas of infrastructure of power and transport primarily. These are important areas for all countries. For a tiny island nation they are matters of life and death. Our history of privatisation – from Eircom, Aer Lingus, ACC and ICC to name a few has shown how financially stupid and strategically counterproductive privatisation really is”.
“It is bad enough to have handed our financial future to a consortium of international bankers and power brokers. Mr McCarthy and his ilk now want to hand over our commercial future to the same vultures. Of course the shock would have been if McCarthy had let economics overrule his biased ideology to arrive at any other conclusion. Naturally the outcome of this report was decided long before the review group had their first meeting”.
“Privatisation is not the answer to the problems in the Irish economy. Our commercial state companies employ 40,000 in profitable companies. They all pay dividends to the state. In the last decade the ESB alone has paid almost €1 billion in dividends to the state. There are vast areas of expansion in the green energy market, in timber cultivation, in tourism, and hopefully in import / export. We should give our commercial state companies the liberty to expand, based on their own commercial strength,”
Mr. Finnegan said that of particular concern in the report was the plan to all but annihilate the ESB along with wholesale sell-off of public transport, energy and communications infrastructure. “The audacity of the review group’s proposals would even make the likes of Margaret Thatcher gasp”, said the Workers’ Party President.
Repudiate the Debt Campaign
20 April 2011
McCarthy delivers as requested
The McCarthy report has delivered what was set out by the previous Government under the tutelage of the EU and IMF. As is standard practice, they appoint the necessary people to ensure the required outcome.
The money raised from the sale of these important people’s assets will do nothing to bring down the massive corporate debt that the previous coalition imposed upon the Irish people, continued by this coalition of the hopeless.
What is required is not that state companies and assets should be sold but rather that they should form the central core of a renewed economic and social development on a more sustainable basis.
These state companies have been built over decades and have played a central role in the economic, social and intellectual life of the country and the skill basis of the economy. Their privatisation will break that basis of historical skills and the intellectual basis so central to economic development.
Eoghan O’Neill
Co-ordinator
The track record of privatisation of resources both here and in the UK is instructive. Asset-stripping on a beggaring scale, allied with no investment and gouging the nation in every way possible.
To be followed by the demand for subsidies to do exactly what the original semi-state was doing!
Just watching Pat Rabbitte on Vincent Browne. The deal with the EU/IMF is that any money from the sale of these assets goes straight to pay off the lenders. Rabbitte reckoned that there was no point in selling them off if we’re not actually able to use the money from the sale.
“The audacity of the review group’s proposals would even make the likes of Margaret Thatcher gasp”
Indeed. The government is trying to appear humane by suggesting it may not adopt all of the group’s recommendations!
I saw Rabbitte on Vincent Browne too. He said he didn’t have a problem with the groups recommendations in principle, which says an awful lot I think.
They smashed the window, now they’re grabbing the loot.
I heard Mary Lou McDonald being asked about the McCarthy report on RTE Drivetime last evening.
The presenter’s opening gambit was along the lines of: ‘You’re ideologically opposed to any sell off, but have you at least approached the report with an open mind.’
I didn’t hear the whole show so I’ll need someone to reassure me that other participants, not least the author of the report, were also questioned about their ideological biases.