Sean Sherlock

Sean Sherlock TD

We need public services which are cost effective.

Every cent of public expenditure must be seen to deliver value to the hard-pressed taxpayers who ultimately fund the Public Service. Public services must be accountable to a level never seen before. This is essential if we are to begin to rebuild trust in government.

Public Services must be innovative if we are to find solutions to the myriad of challenges facing the State. Public Sector Modernisation is a necessity and must form a central plank of any strategy to rebuild and renew not only the economy, but this great Republic.

Labour believes Government to be a positive force for the common good.

Labour views Government as a means of creating the overarching framework which supports the development of a caring and compassionate society; one which provides a safety net in tough times and a help on the ladder of social mobility at all times.

Paradoxically this means that Labour has a far greater interest in public sector reform and modernization than any other party. We argue that Government and the public service are part of the solution. This places a certain onus upon us. Government matters, now more than ever.

There is no room in a crisis for the continuation of the “business as usual” paradigm. This applies to politics, the private sector and in the delivery of public services. We all need to raise the level of our game.

We fully support the principles of the Croke Park agreement and the desire to provide a framework within which greater efficiency in delivering for the citizen can be secured.

The restoration of trust can provide a basis for confidence about pay levels and security of employment in the Public Service for the future. The devil of course is in the detail and it is implementation of the agreement which will prove whether the principles are brought to life or not.

In 2010 Government in Ireland will spend approx €58bn, of which approx €22bn will be borrowed; roughly 35% of Government current expenditures will be on the salaries and pensions of the  360,000 people who work in the approx 572 Departments and Agencies. (I say approximately because nobody knows for sure how many there are).

Government in Ireland is big, complex, and its mission is critical to each and every citizen of this country. Government in Ireland is the largest, the most complex business in the country. Not only does it provide services for its citizens it also provides the vital framework of laws and regulations without which Business and indeed civil society could not function. But…

We must accept that failures in the public service and in particular in those Agencies regulating Financial Services were a contributory factor to the financial crisis which has nearly destroyed our banking system. We didn’t have light touch regulation, we had no touch regulation. This allowed the development of a fiscal tapeworm that was, and is Anglo-Irish bank.

At the foundation of the State we inherited a civil service free of corruption, an inheritance which made the task of nation building much easier than it might otherwise have been. The quality and commitment of Ireland’s civil service also played a vital role in laying the foundations of Ireland’s economic transformation.

But now the problems facing the public service tend to be problems of systems failures rather than poor quality of personnel. We are fortunate to have a public service staffed by people with talent, imagination and commitment. But the system too often ignores the talent, stifles the imagination and does not value the commitment of its staff.

Over time it has grown in response to public demand, or public need, taking over functions from the church, from the family, and indeed inventing functions never seen before. In doing so it has adapted to changing demands by creating new Departments and Agencies and adapting old ones. In the words of one senior civil servant “if you wanted to design a Government from scratch you would not end up with what we have now”.

There is absolutely no doubt that the quality of service in Ireland has improved in many areas. One of the main aims of the public service Modernisation Programme has been to improve the quality of public service.

There have been many successes – notably the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social and Family Affairs, (Social Protection), the Passport Office (notwithstanding more recent difficulties), the Department of Agriculture and Food, the Motor Taxation Department of Dublin City Council.

But Government is not just about service delivery to the public; it is also about the delivery of services within Government such as procurement, financials, payroll, expenses, HR and IT. These services need to be delivered effectively and cost efficiently.

There is strong evidence that this is not the case. Take the issue of HR, the standard ratio of HR to staff in a moderately efficient private sector company is 1:35, in some companies this can be as low as 1:200. In the Irish Public Service this can be as high as 1: 19.

One complaint is often voiced by both the general public and civil servants and that is the lack of joined up Government, or joined up thinking within Government. This is due quite simply to the fact that Government is very poor at internal communication. It is very difficult to get effective co-operation between Government departments. And when two or more Government departments are gathered together things tend not to happen. I always thought the word “silo” was a purely agricultural term. Government Departments are prone to the “silo effect”.

This effect is described as the “lack of communication and common goals between departments in an organisation. It is the opposite of “systems thinking” in an organisation. The silo effect gets its name from the farm storage silo; each silo is designated for one specific grain. It is separate and distinct within the organisation. So, a lack of communication causes departmental thinking to lack ideas from other departments. Communication is against the rules.

Maybe it is time to re-think the organizational structures and think more laterally about how we can modernise them. But Modernisation is prone to what we regard as the “law of unintended consequences” In Ireland we have the example of the Freedom of Information Act – which was a response to the fact that if questions had been answered properly in the Dáil, there would have been no need for the hugely expensive Beef tribunal.

While Civil Servants may complain about having to act as research assistants for journalists, and politicians may frown at the release of information on expenses, there has been one very real and serious unintended consequence, that is, many important decisions are now not documented – or are documented as post notes on the file – not in the file.

Historians are now worried that an Act designed to very properly open decision making to the public gaze may in fact have the very opposite effect. As Civil Servants and politicians have refrained from creating a paper trail we may not know in fact how or why certain sensitive decisions were made.

For example will we ever really know what advice officials in the Department of Finance gave to Finance Ministers over the last few years if they did so mindful of later public scrutiny. Public sector transformation is also not easy given the nature of the public service, which is, contrary to public perceptions or political fantasies, a consensus driven entity not a command and control one.

The popular view is that the Taoiseach is rather like Jean Luc Picard on board the Star Ship Enterprise. All he has to say is “engage” and Mr Lenihan and the whole of Government swiftly turns and speeds in the right direction. In point of fact Government much more resembles that old TV series Battle Star Galactica. Departments and Agencies are like a fleet of battered ships, ranging from the most modern to the most decrepit, moving at vastly different speeds, but hopefully in the same direction.

Let me try and make what I have to say somewhat more tangible by giving a practical case study. The General Register’s Office is the Government body charged with the important task of registering births deaths and marriages.  It was decentralized to Roscommon by Albert Reynolds for the eminently logical reason that Albert had promised xx number of jobs to Roscommon and when they looked through all the central government departments and agencies only the GRO had exactly that number of jobs. There was general agreement that the Agency needed some modernization before being sent to Roscommon.

This was mainly because the queues in the GRO office in Lombard St were measured not by how long the queue was in the building but by how close the end of the queue was to Mahaffy’s pub. One reason why the queue was so long was because a huge number of people had to get birth certs to bring to social welfare to claim child benefit or passports. People had to queue to get a piece of paper from one Government Agency to hand to another Government agency.

The second reason for the queues, was that the legislation meant that every birth cert had to be written out by hand. If you wanted a number of copies a clerk had to go to the original register and copy down the details by hand and then make the requisite number of copies by hand. This legislation dated back to 1864.

Reforming the GRO meant changes in primary legislation, the implementation of an IT system, and major changes in work practices. It was not without its hiccups. The computer system was designed to use 24 characters to record a name, which you would think, would be long enough for most names. But not in Cork. One Cork soccer fan wanted to call his son after the names of the entire Liverpool football team, so the system had to be redesigned.

All that effort was required for just one Agency. So you can now begin to appreciate the mammoth task required to transform the way the public service operates. The Government claims to have ambitious plans for the transformation of the public service, and it has a website to prove it.

For a start it intends to bring in a number of very highly paid professionals from the private sector. I’m not sure that parachuting private sector experts into the unfamiliar territory of the Irish public sector will in fact facilitate change.

The people who know where the problems are – and what the solutions are- are already in the service. We need to empower public service leaders to lead, to take risks and drive change. We need to punish inertia more than risk taking.

That said Public Service leaders also need to understand that bonus’s are a reward for achievement not just for turning up on the day. If we are to really drive public sector reform I believe we need to think big, start small and scale fast.

Think Big- we need to have a vision for the public service that inspires people in the service and commands the respect of people outside it. Ireland should aim to have a world-class public service and that the Irish people know when they hand over their taxes they are getting value for money.

Start small- the nature and the range of public services is so great that we cannot reform everything at once. We need to pick a number of areas and start reform projects. Those that are working, we scale them quickly. These that aren’t, we kill them quickly.

One of the biggest problems in public sector reform is that people try to save dumb ideas because they think they have spent too much on them to let them die. PPARs is the classic example.

Scale Fast -the projects that are working, put the resources into them and grow them fast.

Public Sector Reform is like a Munster Hurling Final, you always take your points. You don’t wait for the big goal. There is still too much ad-hocory in the way we develop the career paths of civil servants. One thousand third level graduates per annum incorporated into the Public Sector would drive this change in the long run.

Finally we must all acknowledge that asking people to change when you have cut their salaries, cut the funding for their Departments and Agencies and sent out your spin doctors to paint workers in the public service in a derogatory light, is a big ask.

If we want change in the public sector we must start with political change not just a new government but a new way of doing politics. The real hope we have for change is that public servants do not like waste. They do want to do a good job and have ideas on how things can be improved. We as Politicians and public servants need to remember that we exist to serve the public and that the “business as usual” paradigm is no longer good enough.

Ciarán Lynch

Ciarán Lynch TD

THIS week’s revelation that more than 32,000 mortgage holders are in arrears and that about two-thirds of them unable to meet payments for more than six months, are shocking enough, but don’t even represent the full picture according to Labour TD Ciarán Lynch.

“For example, the figures do not include financially stressed householders who have negotiated with their lenders to take a payments holiday or to make interest-only payments.

“The 13 per cent increase in households in arrears for more than 90 days is particularly alarming, particularly when the Government has shown all the dynamism in dealing with this crisis, as a deer caught in the headlights.

“Just yesterday in the Dáil, Labour made an attempt to get some clarity from the Government on when their panel of experts, will have concluded its deliberations.

This panel, cobbled together by the Greens and Fianna Fail as an after thought to their revised Programme for Government, was seen as the silver bullet that would address all the problems faced by people in arrears.

“The report of this task force won’t be published until the end of June, and so is unlikely to come before the Dáil this side of September. When the Government will actually act on it is anybody’s guess, but it will probably be too late for many families.

“All evidence shows that the cost of families losing their home is greater than putting a programme in place to assist people to bridge this difficult period.

Labour has consistently argued that we need a 24-month moratorium from the time that mortgages first go into arrears, before repossession proceedings can be taken, where a borrower makes reasonable efforts to meet their obligations to pay the mortgage on a principal private residence.

“We believe that we need a National Home Mortgage Service that would act as an advocate for home owners who are facing difficulty, and would be able to mediate with the lenders on their behalf. It would be empowered to impose new payment schedules on lenders, particularly where they have been bailed out by the State, and to order lenders not to impose additional fees, interest, and charges.

“In certain cases, the Agency would also be empowered to take a stake in a residential property where it was clear that the owners could a genuine ability to make some level of repayment on an ongoing basis.

“The NHMS would set out the eligibility factors to qualify for assistance and would include –

• The mortgage variation would have to be fair to the Borrower and fair to the Lender.

• An independent assessment of the Borrower’s true circumstances would have to be prepared and vouched.

• Assistance/relief could only be available to owner-occupiers.

• An evaluation would have to be carried out to ascertain whether adverse changes in circumstances are irreversible or merely temporary in expected duration.

• The Borrower would have to demonstrate a minimum capacity to pay a sum equivalent to the Social Housing rental differential towards their total monthly mortgage interest repayment.

“By the same token the Financial Regulator’s power will have to be beefed up in relation to enquiry, assessment and evaluation of charging of fees, penalties, surcharges and so forth by the Lenders and stiff penalties will have to be imposed for violation of the Code/Legislation.

•        A review of eligibility of each Applicant will take place, if necessary, annually, by the NHMS or if it is claimed that there has been a change in circumstances the Lender might be entitled to call for such a review earlier than at a yearly interval.  These reviews should evaluate whether the Borrower is in a position to pay a greater sum and whether the scheme of adjustment is viable in the long-term, having regard to any changes in circumstances or other adverse or positive events.

“Each lending institution participating in the Scheme would be required to commit to a new statutory code in relation to mortgage arrears, which will pare down appreciably the “free for all” system of add-on charges and fees that currently is available.

“We cannot escape the reality that the delinquent and reckless lending practices of recent years will have resulted in situations where a number of families have entered into mortgage transactions – frequently, but not invariable with some prime lenders – which are in truth wholly non-viable, for example where the duration of the loan is so long, the amount borrowed so high, the current market value so depressed relative to acquisition price that it is not proper or equitable to arrange a longer repayment schedule.

“In such cases, and as may be determined by an NHMS assessment, it is not in the long-term interests of the family to remain entrapped in the clutches of the loan and State intervention is required.  The NHMS would have a role in helping such a family navigate the various supports that are available from Local Authorities, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and other bodies and entities”.

Billy Kelleher

Minister of State for Trade & Commerce, Billy Kelleher TD

“One of the key elements of Ireland’s recovery plan is to build a better future by means of a more efficient and innovative economy,” said Billy Kelleher, Minister for Trade & Commerce at a recent seminar on EU Innovation Supports in Shannon.

The seminar, organised by Shannon Chamber and the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in association with Enterprise Ireland, the Enterprise Europe Network in Ireland (EEN) and Bank of Ireland, drew an impressive panel of speakers from the EU and Ireland, and case study Irish companies, who collectively urged the business and academic communities to give increased consideration to using EU innovation funding for their and Ireland’s benefit.

Outlining the Government’s commitment to R&D, Deputy Kelleher said, “Over the past ten years, the Government has trebled the level of investment in Research and Development and is working towards reaching its target of achieving a national R&D investment of 3 per cent of GDP, public and private combined.

“With 45 per cent of all enterprises in Ireland now engaged in some level of innovation   activities, the total spend on innovation activities by companies in Ireland was almost €5.3billion in 2008.

“Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the Irish economy.  Over 97 per cent of businesses operating in Ireland today are ‘small’, employing over half of the total workforce in this country.

“The ability of small companies to compete and grow is something that merits a lot of attention as Ireland’s future economic growth relies on the development of our indigenous enterprise sector,” he said.

Commenting from Brussels on the benefits of the seminar, Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn added, “I congratulate the organisers on offering this opportunity to stakeholders in the west, mid-west and southwest. I fully support this type of event, in Ireland and elsewhere.

“The more information we can get across on EU research funding and how to get it, the more applicants we will have and the higher will be the quality of the projects we fund. Ultimately, events like this help boost the contribution of EU- funded research to the products and services of the future.”

Supporting the Deputy Kelleher’s comments, Shannon Chamber president Ian Barrett said that while Ireland faces many economic, fiscal, structural and unemployment challenges, one thing is clear, “Our recovery will need to be jobs led, based on regaining competitiveness and moving up the value curve.

Our challenge as a nation is to build on our excellent people skills, our first rate education system and to engage in more leading-edge research.

“We need to build an economy based on increased specialist knowledge and know-how, an economy with higher rates of innovation and expertise, with increased collaboration both between industrial organisations and between industry and third-level institutions, supported by personal, corporate, national and EU funding.”

According to Jerry Moloney, Enterprise Ireland Regional Director, mid-west region, Irish SMEs have a lot to gain from participating in EU innovation programmes.

“Enterprise Ireland has introduced thousands of small Irish companies to business and research partners across Europe through our role as the national co-ordinator of both the Enterprise Europe Network in Ireland and the €50billion Seventh EU Framework Programme for R&D.

“I would encourage companies in the west, mid-west and south-west to actively seek out opportunities to collaborate with other companies and research institutions in Europe.”

Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, Martina Daly, administrator, SME Unit, EU Framework Programme for R&D added, “As part of the Commission’s strategy for “Europe” 2020” aiming to move out of the crisis and create a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe, preparation is underway to deliver a new Research and Innovation Strategy which will set out how to achieve an ‘Innovation Union’.

“The Commission sees this as vital for Europe’s growth and job potential and for its role in the world economy, ensuring that innovative companies, especially SMEs get access to funding, and that promising new ideas make it to the European and global markets.

“The Seventh Framework for Research and Technological Development (FP7) offers more opportunities for SMEs than ever before.

“With increasing budgets each year in FP7, now is the time for SMEs to seize these opportunities and apply for funding in upcoming calls which will   be published in July.  In addition, a new pilot action for ‘demonstration’ projects will be launched this year, specifically for SMEs to take project results to market,” Ms Daly added.

Jim O'Keeffe

Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe

The Sea Fisheries Amendment Bill is one which I hope the Government will support. It is designed to deal with a long-standing grievance of the fishing community which now has Ireland as the only maritime jurisdiction within the European Union without a system of administrative sanctions for fishery offences. It will also establish a much improved enforcement mechanism in relation to less serious fisheries infractions, promote a greater culture of compliance and reduce administrative and other costs for the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and fishermen alike.

The Bill is particularly designed to deal with the constitutional issues raised when the issue of administrative sanctions was previously addressed. By following the Fixed Penalty Notice approach of ‘on the spot fines’ the Bill follows legislative precedents which go back as far as the Road Traffic Act of 1961.

Neither I nor Fine Gael have any interest in introducing a pirate’s charter in relation to serious quota and environmental breaches. Very simply, major offenders must face the full rigours of the law and substantial penalties through the criminal courts. But it is clear that expensive and time consuming criminal procedures are demonstrably an inefficient way to deal with minor and technical offences.

We are an island nation with over two thousand vessels on the Sea Fishing Boat Registry. About five thousand fishermen are employed in the fishing fleet with a further four thousand employed in fish processing and ancillary activities. Our coastal communities are very dependant on the fishing sector.

I believe it is unfair and unjust to discriminate against our coastal communities by indiscriminately providing for criminal convictions for minor and technical fishery offences. The scheme of the Bill removes this serious discrimination. It preserves the warning system employed by the Naval Service and the prosecution of serious offences under Section 28 of the principal Act. The Bill introduces a median layer of sanctions, in the form of fixed penalty notices, to a maximum of €1,000 for any one notice, for infractions of sea fisheries legislation which do not warrant or justify the very serious penalties envisaged in Section 28. The fixed penalty notice system will thus complement rather than replace the system provided in the 2006 Act. The Bill provides that the Minister may introduce regulations which allow for the provision of fixed penalties for certain offences under the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. This provision is modelled on Section 47.2 of the Maritime Safety Act 2005.

The response of the Government in the past to earlier proposals for administrative sanctions in relation to the sea fisheries offences has always been that it would be unconstitutional to introduce such a regime. The present Bill answers the constitutional argument by providing for an Irish system of administrative sanctions using precedents that have withstood constitutional challenge over the years.  It will be difficult for a fisherman or indeed anybody else to understand or accept that a fixed penalty notice regime can apply on land but not on our coastal waters.

Similarly, is it not ludicrous to suggest that ‘on the spot’ fines can be imposed on the driver of a car but not on the skipper of a fishing boat? To suggest that one is constitutional and the other is not just makes no sense.

It is quite clear from precedents that ‘on the spot’ fines have a long and hallowed history in the Irish legislative armoury. They were provided for almost fifty years ago in the Road Traffic Act 1961 and as recently as 2005 in the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act. There have been many other examples in the meantime in Local Government and other legislation.

What I am now proposing is a system which is well within the four corners of what has been ratified by the Supreme Court time and time again.

A regime of administrative sanctions which utilises monetary fines with a residual right of appeal to the District Court has consistently been held to be within the ambit of the derogation allowed under Article 37.1 of the

Constitution. With regard to the amount, the Safety Health and Welfare at

Work Act 2005 provides a legislative example of a €1,000 fine that is imposed as an administrative penalty. Once that figure is not breached for any one fine I believe that it is constitutionally irrelevant that a vessel is fined for several different offences.

Indeed once the principle is established and accepted it is my belief that one could go further and introduce a penalty point system as has been introduced under the Road Traffic Act. This will be relevant in relation to changes that are on the way at European Union level.

Essentially therefore, there does not appear to be anything unique to fisheries legislation that would make it so constitutionally distinct as to preclude the possibility of a scheme of ‘on the spot’ fines bulwarked by the eventual imposition of a temporary suspension of fishing licence arising from a penalty point regime.

The other argument used in the past is that somehow or other there is an imperative European obligation that would make a system of administrative sanctions a legal impossibility. Such an argument conveniently ignores the views of the European Commission which has consistently reiterated its stance that administrative penalties are the most effective means of ensuring compliance with the Common Fisheries Policy in a cost effective manner.

Anybody now advancing such an argument will have to explain why a fixed penalty notice regime, which has now also been introduced in England and

Wales, Scotland and more recently in Northern Ireland should be considered to be acceptable to the European Commission and everyone else and yet that we are unable to introduce such as system here in our jurisdiction.

If the proposals in my Bill are not accepted we will now be isolated as the odd man out in Europe.

The aim of the amending Bill is to provide an improved enforcement mechanism which will allow for an appropriate fine to be imposed punishing less serious infractions. Such an approach will reduce the costs and uncertainty for both fishermen and sea fishery protection services. It will lead to a faster conclusion of cases and the avoidance of a criminal record with associated stigma for minor offences. Above all it will promote a greater culture of compliance by allowing sea fisheries protection officers to levy “on the spot” fines for a wide variety of minor and technical fishery offences.

I am indebted to the Oireachtas library and research service and in particular its Senior Law Researcher John Kenny BL for the very extensive examination conducted on my behalf on the feasibility of introducing administrative sanctions into Irish fisheries legislation. What is clear from this research is that while the Common Fisheries Policy does indeed require a dissuasive national scheme there is no reason why this should exclude a complementary layer of administrative sanctions to control minor or technical infractions.

The attitude of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) is also very interesting. At the moment the SFPA is armed with a legislative blunderbuss and nothing else. It can prosecute or do nothing. When it prosecutes even for minor offences the fishing boat skipper has his boat tied up, sometimes for weeks on end. He faces loss of income, court costs, fines, possible suspension or forfeiture of not just his fishing licence but also his catch and gear which is mandatory for a conviction or indictment and for a second summary conviction. In its evidence last July to the Joint Oireachtas

Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries the SFPA stated as follows:

“We have an enforcement strategy because we are empowered to enforce the legislation. If we had more powers, such as giving warning letters and administrative sanctions, we would start as we do in the area of food safety, by issuing advice, guidance, warning letters, administrative sanctions and prosecutions through the court. The compliance strategy would look at graded steps towards prosecution and the barriers to compliance on the other side of the equation and try to deal with them. That is where we are in terms of enforcement with our compliance strategy. At present we do not have the gift to issue administrative sanctions.”

We now have a situation where the fishermen want administrative sanctions. Those who are charged with enforcement – the SFPA – want administrative sanctions. The European Union want administrative sanctions. The Supreme Court has clearly ratified the administrative sanction approach involved in a regime of Fixed Penalty Notices. It is my belief that virtually all members of this House are in favour of this approach. I strongly urge therefore the acceptance of the Fine Gael Bill and this will lead onto the various stakeholders sitting down to work out a system of regulations to implement the Bill as happened in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the last two years.

Sean Sherlock

IN discussing the Second Stage of the Forestry (Amendment) Bill  find ourselves in a scenario whereby the government seeks the permission of this House to afford to Coillte the opportunity to increase their statutory borrowing requirement from 101.5 million approx to 400million

The Bill’s explanatory amendment states, and I quote:

“The existing statutory limit was set in 1988, when the legislation providing for the establishment of Coillte was enacted, and has not been increased since then. Coillte has a significant capital investment programme each year — this includes reforestation, investment in forest infrastructure and plant and equipment. It is necessary to increase the statutory borrowing limit to make adequate provision for the borrowing requirements of Coillte for its capital expenditure programme. is State owned and is a State body.”

In dealing with this Bill, there are points which I would wish to see clarified

We are told that the existing statutory limit was set in 1988 when the legislation allowing for the creation of Coillte was enacted and it has not been increased since then.

Under the Forestry Act, 1988, Coilte may, with the consent of the Minister for Agriculture and Food and the Minister for Finance, borrow money for capital purposes including working capital from persons other than the Minister for Finance. The aggregate at any one time of such borrowings by the company shall not exceed IR£80m (-€101.5million approx.)

Over the past number of years Coillte has been availing of the temporary borrowing provision as per the provisions of the Forestry Act 1988.

But, Coillte’s level of borrowings at the end of 2008 was €161.2million.

We are told that the company currently has approval to borrow up to a total of €260million under Sections 24(1) and (2) of the Forestry Act 1988.

A briefing note provided to the Whips office tells us capital expenditure by the company has included:

• The acquisition of Weyerhaeuser Europe Ltd (renamed Medite Europe Ltd) in November 2006

• Coillte’s annual capital investment programme. In 2008 over €58.09 million was spent on afforestation, reforestation, buildings, machinery/equipment and other capital work.

• Between 1993 and 1999, Coillte invested significant funds in acquiring and planting 24,000 hectares of land.

• Investment in Information Technology.

While Coillte may, as provided in Section 24 (2) of the Forestry Act 1988, borrow money temporarily up to a limit approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance, it is considered that it would be better to increase the statutory borrowing limit provided in Section 24 (1).

Temporary borrowings have been approved for Coillte, under Section 24 (2) – however, it is not ideal to provide large amounts of finance on a long-term basis by way of a succession of temporary borrowing sanctions.

The proposal before the House is to decide that “it should pass this legislation on the basis that the taking of the proposed legislation before the end of the year would mean that Coillte’s proposed borrowings could be considered in the context of Section 24 (1), rather than the company seeking approval for additional borrowings, over and above a limit set in 1988, under Section 24 (2).

“The current practice is that, at the beginning of each year, Coillte seeks the consent of both Ministers, under Section 24 (1) of the Act for borrowings up to a certain limit for the (calendar) year i.e. from 1 January to 31 December.

While, we support this in principle, we do have legitimate questions about how Coillte operates.

There are questions around its Corporate Governance structures and its day to day practices.

We know that the Organisational Structure has been significantly changed:

In 2006, the Coillte Group was re-organised around three key operating divisions –

- Coillte Forests

- Coillte Enterprise and

- Coillte Panel Products.

Coillte’s estate amounts to approx. 445,000 hectares.

The Coillte Group consists of Coillte and the following subsidiaries and joint venture undertakings:

- Smartply Europe -  a manufacturing facility in Waterford where it manufactures Orientated Strand Board (OSB) wood panels for the Irish, European and USA markets.

- Medite Europe – a manufacturing facility in Clonmel, Co Tipperary where it manufactures medium density fibreboard (mdf). This was formerly known as Weyerhaeuser Europe Ltd and was acquired by Coillte in 2006.

- Coillte Panel Products UK Ltd operates its panel products marketing business in the UK.

- Moylurg Rockingham – a joint venture arrangement with Roscommon County Council in relation to the development and operation of Lough Key Forest Park.

- Garvagh Glebe Windpower Limited – a joint venture windfarm development with ESB.

My questions surround the logic of paying a CEO a salary of 400,000 plus at a time when the commercial interests within the entity that is Coillte are underperforming.

Management at Coillte must acknowledge that the group is State owned and is a State body.

It must acknowledge that if every worker in this country has had a pay freeze or reduction in their pay, then Coillte and its staff must not be exempted from a similar cut.

Furthermore, there are questions surrounding some of the practices  at Coillte.

I refer to a report by the  Forestry Stewardship Council’s Principles in 2006, whereupon it has been reported that Coillte have been before the courts for breaches in Irish Law.

For a body with a considerable amount of Irish land in its charge, Coillte’s rap sheet on illegal dumping and felling is not assuring.

The administration’s laissez-faire attitude to the European Court’s rulings on its status as a State body is disconcerting.

Perhaps symptomatic of this, Coillte’s record on access to lands and due diligence in giving public notices on manners such a felling of trees is less than desirable.

While the Labour Party is not opposed to this Bill, we feel that the State’s position as the sole shareholder in Coillte must be reflected in both the management’s relationship with the Oireachteas and in its dealings with the public.

As a State body it is essential that Coillte is run in a responsible and transparent manner, with due deference to the State and and its responsibilities to the Irish public.

Before we, as elected representatives, can in confidence pass this Bill, questions have to be asked.

What is the real requirement of Coillte to borrow €400million? Is €100million insufficient?

Coillte must satisfy conditions that I am certain I am not alone in seeking.

Borrowings of this magnitude, in this climate, must go directly towards significant capital investment which will ensure a positive return.

This return must not only cover the significant loans taken, as facilitated by the passing of this bill, but must also ensure a return for Coillte.

The return on these loans will presumably cover a dividend for the State in the medium to long-term.

Having consulted Coillte’s recent financial reports, its current pension deficit stands out as a concern that must be addressed.

Can we be assured that the borrowing levels that Coillte seek are not simply for addressing this deficit?

What are the plans to address the pension deficit?

Bearing in mind the current events in Copenhagen, Coillte must not only seek to improve its own environmental record, but strive to set new standards.

Coillte, as custodians of a significant amount of Irish land, must seek to harness the potential that lies therein.

Reports from Copenhagen suggest that if a deal is struck, agriculture will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20pc.

The politics of Copenhagen are such that agriculture and food will be treated differently.

I do not buy into a theory that the way to cut CO2 emmissions is to cut food production.

We cannot and must not cut the national herd and I hope that Mr. Gormleys mandate is clearly set out in that regard.

Growth in the Forestry sector must then become the political mechanism by which we offset carbon generated.

This will provide a significant role for Coillte as an offsetting mechanism so that agricultural production is not compromised.

If the increase in the borrowing requirement feeds into this agenda then that is to the good.

Coillte has a critical role in relation to Climate Change.

Coillte will have a role in relation to alternative energy production.

With the advent of better technologies we must be satisfied that the Commercial State sector do their utmost to address this global challenge whereby we grow our economy, create employment and reach (and perhaps surpass) international targets on carbon emissions.

The Labour Party will support this Bill without amendment.

But it is necessary that this House would ensure that Coillte will come under closer scrutiny in relation to its practices.

Bernard Allen

by Bernard Allen TD

(This article also appeared in the Evening Echo)

Over the past number of days the people of Cork have endured one of the worst natural disasters seen in the city and county in living memory.

The efforts of the emergency services and the citizens of Cork in coming together as a community at this time of crisis has been truly heart warming.

The strength of character shown by people across the country has been wonderful to see.

The emergency services have come to the rescue and done us all proud and it is vital in these trying times that people do come together.

This is an unprecedented event. We must do all we can in future to minimise the effects of flooding. Businesses have been ruined, homes have been severely damaged and fifty thousand people in the city of Cork have no running water for drinking, for washing, to flush toilets, to brush their teeth or to wash their clothes and dishes with.

The situation  in Cork happened after an extended period of rainfall and the opening of the gates at Inniscarra Dam early on Friday morning.

In a statement the ESB said that due to the unprecedented level of rainfall it became necessary to increase the amount of water being released from the Inniscarra Dam downstream towards Cork. They say they began doing this from this previous Monday, November 16^th and “informed the relevant authorities per the Emergency Response Plan,” that they were doing so.

They add, “on Thursday, November 19^th a total rainfall of  90mm fell in the area, twice what had been forecast. Flooding built to an unprecedented high at the Inniscarra dam with enormous rapidity – despite the increased discharge that ESB had initiated from the previous Monday. The water was building up extremely fast”.

As a result of the rapid build up of water it became clear on Thursday that massive amounts of water would have to be released from the dam. The ESB say that they “informed the statutory bodies with responsibility for emergency response, that there was a risk of  severe flooding” and that “personnel at Inniscarra Dam informed Cork County Council, Cork City Council, and the emergency services. In addition, ESB issued a media alert, warning of the danger of severe flooding in the Lee Valley between the Inniscarra Dam and Cork city, approximately eight miles away”.

Clearly this was not enough. The system in place did not do the job it was supposed to do and thousands of people about to be deluged by flood waters from the dam were not prepared for it.

The non-descript warning that went out in Thursday was just not good enough from the ESB. Cork County Council offices were flooded out of it, the water pumping station was heavily flooded, the courthouse flooded, UCC, the Mercy Hospital, the Glucksman Gallery, businesses and homes were flooded.

If the ESB has to flood downstream it has to give people a proper warning to elevate all they can in their homes and businesses and to sandbag every place where water can get in. Nature forced this issue but we have to know if human error made this situation worse.

If someone had been near where the quay wall that collapsed by the Mercy Hospital at the time it could have had tragic consequences. City engineers must assure us that our quay walls are up to the job and an inquiry should find out if the wall was fit for purpose. Cork city needs a plan to cope into the future with river flooding and tidal flooding.

If climate change is going to hit cities like Cork we need our Green environment minister to step up to the plate. We need proper flood barriers and sophisticated flood warning systems. In this day and age we cannot tolerate water being cut off to half the people of the second city of the country for an extended period and I trust the engineers working on the problem will pull out all the stops to get supplies back as soon as possible.

We should remember that things could have been worse and be thankful that no one was swept away. Thankfully nobody was killed this time. Next time people must be properly warned and prepared if the ESB has to release water in such a manner. If we move on from this flood without learning lessons for the future, we will be doomed to see similar disasters again.

The Minister for the Environment must take the lead in ensuring that proper early warning systems based on sophisticated water modelling are put in place and that works are carried out now so that damage can be minimised and millions of euro can be saved in the future.

We must have a fully independent inquiry into what transpired to flood the city of Cork. The Government do an injustice to the hard work of the people on the ground if they don’t try to learn the lessons from this crisis. We have seen people at their best on the ground, now lets see some action from the Government.

Micheál Martin

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin

The genius of the Good Friday Agreement, supplemented by the St Andrews Agreement, is that it addresses all of the essential relationships and elements required, not only to bring the conflict to an end, but also to build sustainable, permanent peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and on these islands.

It provides us with a forward looking, future oriented agenda and the necessary framework to achieve it.

The consolidation of our peace requires that all of the elements be respected and implemented.  The story of the last ten years has been, to coin a phrase “much done, more to do”.

If we are honest, we must acknowledge that we have wasted too much time and lost too much momentum over the last decade, in debates about pre-conditions and sequencing.  What we all need to do is work together to realise the full implementation of the Agreement across the board.

The balanced progressive implementation of all aspects of the Agreement is the best way to complete the journey from conflict to a shared future of permanent peace and reconciliation.

Many of the preparations for the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Stormont are well advanced.

The financial package provides a robust basis to move forward.  I would urge all of the parties in Northern Ireland to work together to ensure that the transfer of these powers takes place as soon as possible. The progress that has been made in building cross community support for policing and justice must be consolidated and built on now, and completing the devolution of policing and justice is the best way to do this.

Over the last decade, the contention around parading has been reduced, with much of the progress due to the work of the Parades Commission, together with local engagement and effective leadership at community level.

Unfortunately, a number of parades retain the potential to destabilise the situation each summer.

Parades need to be addressed in a mutually respectful way, acknowledging the importance of the interlocking issues of rights and responsibilities on all sides. Solutions cannot be imposed or dictated and should not be demanded as a prerequisite for progress in other areas of the Agreement.

Nor can they can they be presented as a win for one community over the other.

by the Children’s Rights Alliance

On the day of the Lisbon Treaty referendum vote, the Children’s Rights Alliance has its sights set on another referendum.  Today, the Alliance publishes a letter sent to members of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, reminding them of their obligation, in two weeks time (16 October), to deliver a final report that will recommend a referendum to strengthen children’s rights in the Constitution.

The Alliance was prompted to write to the Committee after a public session on 23 September 2009 in which Committee members acknowledged that they had reached an impasse in their work.

Mrs Jillian van Turnhout, the Alliance’s Chief Executive, says: “While we are all rightly engrossed in the ins and outs of the Lisbon Treaty referendum, it is the duty of the Committee members to now focus on the next referendum: the children’s rights referendum.

The Committee has less than two weeks to produce its report to the Oireachtas on 16 October and they will be failing the children of Ireland if they do not call for a referendum to strengthen children’s rights.

In its letter, the Alliance echoes calls from Committee members that party politics be set aside and that they work together to move beyond rhetoric.  A referendum is our only viable option if we are to truly ensure that the State is committed to children’s rights.”

The Alliance is intensifying its work and is gearing up for a series of activities in the run up to 16 October, including the hosting of a panel discussion with representatives of the Committee and Alliance member organisations, comprising over 90 organisations concerned with children’s rights.  The panel discussion will provide opportunities for representatives from each political party to outline their party’s perspective on a proposed amendment.

Mrs van Turnhout adds, “It is essential that we make children visible in our Constitution the fundamental law of the country. It is high-time that the State takes proper account of children’s rights.

“Children continue to be treated differently in law depending on their parents’ marital status; and each and every day children are negatively affected by the current constitutional provisions.  For example, there are children in Ireland embroiled in custody and adoption battles whose interests are invisible; children who are abandoned with no hope of adoption; and children who are in need of protection who must wait until their situation deteriorates before the State can help.

“Vulnerable children, caught up in these situations, depend on the State to safeguard their rights and ultimately their future.  But without a constitutional amendment, the State’s hands are tied.”

In the letter written by Mrs van Turnhout, she argues, “The final hurdle is fast approaching. We urge Committee members to live up to their commitments and declarations made in the course of their deliberations. Each of the political parties’ General Election manifestos in May 2007 and the current Programme for Government commits to strengthening children’s constitutional rights. Constitutional reform is essential to make Ireland one of the best places in the world to be a child and we ask members to now play their role to make this happen, and to issue a recommendation on 16 October to hold a referendum, without delay, to strengthen children’s rights in the Constitution.”

Noel O'Flynn

Does anybody remember what happened on St. Patrick’s Day in 1985? Ireland’s largest bank at the time, AIB, disclosed the failure of its subsidiary, Insurance Corporation of Ireland, known as ICI at the time. That was probably the worst and the biggest financial difficulty the State had ever seen, along with that from two years previously, the failure of the PMPA with liabilities of approximately £223 million.

During that time, commentators pointed to the various potential warning signs that were available in advance. Regarding ICI, for example, it was remarked that for several years ICI’s reserves against future claims represented a much lower ratio to claims paid than the industry average—–

I hope I will have a chance to finish my contribution because it is important.

I was making the point about ICI whose underwriting losses in 1982 went from £0.5 million to £7.3 million. At the time, ICI was selling insurance premiums in its London office, insuring satellites, bloodstock and fairgrounds. All of this collapsed and there were hundreds of millions worth of claims against the company. The Government of the day had two options; it could have stood back and let the liquidation take place when the company was about to go into liquidation or it could have responded appropriately to the consequences. The Government could either assume the liabilities of ICI from AIB or it could allow a run on AIB’s cash which would have been a run on the bank and which would be contagious. Who saved that company and who made the decision? None other than Dr. Garret FitzGerald who was the Taoiseach of the country at the time and Mr. Alan Dukes who was the Minister for Finance. They decided that this company could not be allowed to go into liquidation and that AIB was to be allowed to walk away. They decided that the reputation of the country was so important that the claims against the company should be honoured and that existing insurance premiums should be fully covered. This was the decision taken during a very difficult period for the country. I understand it cost several hundred million to solve that problem and we all remember the 2% insurance levy and the PMPA.

It is interesting to note that the administrator of ICI at that time was Mr. Donal O’Connor who is now the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank. I was talking to Mr. Alan Dukes last week and he said that ICI as a company has still not been wound up because there are still claims being dealt with 25 years later. It is important for the Opposition to remember that this was a decision taken by the Government of the day and it was the correct decision so as not to allow Ireland’s reputation to be tarnished by allowing a major company, which had insured a variety of assets all over the world, to fail and not honour the claims.

This is what the Government is trying to do with NAMA. The banking system provides vital working capital for Irish business as this is the lifeblood of business. Every sector from agriculture to manufacturing is suffering from a lack of access to overdrafts and working capital. They cannot buy stock or trade because they do not have confidence.

I have been in business since 1 April 1985 – April fool’s day. I am no different to anybody else. Our company has suffered, our turnover is down. We deal in the motor trade, in the motor parts business and car sales are down 60% to 70%. The message from my employees is that customers and other businesses do not have confidence in themselves, in the country or in the economy. They are afraid to purchase out of fear they will be unable to pay for the goods when payment is due. They are not receiving support from the banks because the banks are looking at their business and reducing rather than increasing overdrafts. Businesses which have never had any difficulty with banks or with trading are the ones who are suffering because of this crisis. The result has been job losses in the economy. The live register figures in August were at 428,000 people whereas one year earlier the live register figure was 236,000. Lack of working capital is a particular problem for small businesses who do not have major reserves and who are dependent on overdrafts to keep their businesses on the go.

It is important to put in place a firm foundation for the Irish banking system. This is the first and most immediate issue facing the Government and this nation. Several Members have also made the point that this is not about rescuing the banks or developers but rather about saving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people who are not greedy, who did not go mad in the boom but now are being thrown out of a job because of the collapse of the banking system and its inability to lend to productive enterprises.

I have looked at the options put forward by Fine Gael and the Labour Party and I genuinely believe that the Fianna Fáil-led Government and the NAMA option is probably the best one at this time. It is not without fault but it is the best option. It is neither perfect nor without risk but if we abandon plans to implement it we will destroy international and investment confidence in this economy and the ability of the Irish political system to provide leadership in a time of crisis. Failure to implement NAMA will turn Ireland into – I hate to use the term – a banana republic. That said, we have a duty to minimise the risks to the taxpayer by ensuring that valuations paid for bank assets are realistic and that an element of risk sharing is put in place, along the lines advocated by the new Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Patrick Honohan. The Minister has set out clearly how the risk will be shared. Realistic valuations should be based on international experience of property boom and bust. I read recently that Professor Morgan Kelly of University College Dublin estimated that between 2000 and 2007 while nominal GNP rose by 77%, mortgage lending rose from €24 billion to €115 billion, lending to builders rose from €2.4 billion to €25 billion and lending to developers from €5 billion to €80 billion. Should the usual post-bubble correction occur in Ireland, this suggests that real prices of residential and commercial property would return to the levels of the mid to late 1990s, two thirds below peak values. This seems to me to be a realistic and suitable valuation and one for which the Government should aim.

The tax-paying public are being asked to risk a considerable amount of public money to save the banking system when there are many demands from the old, the sick and disabled which we cannot meet. The public have a right to demand that bankers and developers, whose greed, arrogance and stupidity precipitated the crisis, pay and are seen to pay for their misdeeds.

I note that the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the fraud squad are in Anglo Irish Bank. I understand that as many as 400 witness statements will be taken along with the forensic investigation of all transactions and decisions of the bank. This bank has done major damage to Ireland’s international credibility. We must show that we are serious and get to the bottom of decisions taken by that bank and other financial institutions.

We must also show that we are serious about regulation. The Financial Regulator was asleep at the wheel. Instead of monitoring the banks and other financial institutions, his staff spent their time hounding mortgage brokers regarding the content of their adverts. They hounded people who were trying to make a living instead of monitoring what was happening in the banks.

On 22 January last, I wrote to Deputy Michael Ahern, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, asking for a full investigation into what went wrong with the bank. Dr. Colm McCarthy made the same call a couple of months ago but I made it in January. I wrote:

Dear Michael, I would be grateful if you and your Committee, Finance and Public Service Committee, would investigate the circumstances and failures of the banking and financial systems regarding Anglo Irish Bank.

The role of the Central Bank, the role of the Financial Regulator and the role of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the role of the Department of Finance and any other State bodies and the banks auditors associated with the bank.

The confidence in the banking system has been seriously undermined by the revelations which have emerged from Anglo Irish Bank in recent months.

Confidence must be restored in our banking system and in us, as legislators who make the laws to regulate banks and financial services in Ireland.

I would urge your Committee to use its powers to compel witnesses and discovery of documents under compellability legislation which was used in the DIRT inquiry.

Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act.

I served on the mini-CTC inquiry, which was brought to a halt by Mr. Justice Kelly in the High Court in 2001. The Abbeylara inquiry was also brought to a halt. Of course, we had a very successful DIRT inquiry. We have solved these problems legally, as a result of these inquiries and we are now in a position to continue with them. When all this is dealt with and if prosecutions are taken against individuals, the Oireachtas should get to the bottom of what went wrong in our financial system so that if we introduce regulatory legislation we will do so having been informed by a proper inquiry.

I have seen people come before Oireachtas committees whom I do not believe have been truthful. Much of the information given by witnesses to committees in the past 12 months was evasive and not the truth. The only way to get at the truth is to use the powers of discovery and compellability which would ensure that witnesses appearing before committees would have to tell the truth and produce documents.

The National Asset Management Agency will purchase land and development loans from the banks, together with their largest related investment property loans, at a discount to book value. We are doing this in order to help banks to clean up their balance sheets, reduce uncertainty regarding their bad debts, boost the flow of credit to businesses and households and kick-start the economy. NAMA will purchase the loans through the issue of Government bonds. Many people think we will, physically, take money out of the taxpayers’ purses and give it to the banks. We are giving a piece of paper which will allow a bank to go the European Central Bank and draw down funds based on the value of that bond. NAMA will pay 1.5% for the privilege of having that money available to the Irish banking system.

Of course, the decision to take not only the impaired or non-performing loans but also performing loans and property assets, was correct. Some 40% of the loans taken are performing loans. Those performing loans will help pay the running expenses as well as the interest rates on the money drawn down by the banking system.

This is not a bailout for borrowers who have purchased these properties. All borrowers, no matter who they are, will be required to pay back all the money they were lent, including rolled-over interest. If they fail to service their debts, NAMA will call in their loans and take possession of the assets on which the loans are secured. Until now, the banks were hiding these loans on their balance sheets. They were rolling over the interest because they could not get it from borrowers. They could not get blood from a turnip. They did not want to liquidate people who owed them €1 billion or more because that would reflect badly on the bank. One bank has done this because it is not an Irish bank and is, obviously, trying to exit Ireland.

It is important for the people to know that even though we are buying the book debt it will not simply sit there. NAMA will make firm decisions on what is to be done, whether something is viable, whether it can pay its way or must be liquidated, in full or in part, to repay developers’ loans.

The banks have much to answer for. They competed for business and did not want others to get it. They took extreme risks. When the banks deal with smaller business people now, they roast them.

No one is roasting me, but I know several business people who are finding it difficult. Banks are being aggressive towards businesses that have worked hard to employ people and provide manufacturing goods and services. They are placing people under pressure at a time when they should not. It is not the people’s fault that there is a slow down in the economy and a fall off in business of 30% to 60%.

In Athlone recently, I made it clear to the Minister that we need banks to guarantee that, when assets are removed from their balance sheets and they have the ECB’s money, money will flow to businesses and house owners and the haranguing and pressuring of decent people who are trying to run their businesses and keep people employed will stop. For any employer, there is nothing worse than needing to put someone on a three-day week or make employees redundant, particularly where a person might have served for 20 years or longer. This is distressing for any business person who values employees, and they lose skills and expertise. Unfortunately, for businesses to survive and to cut costs, difficult decisions must be made.

I send a clear message to the two major banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, that they should stop what they are doing and try to help businesses and people to survive in these difficult times. I have great confidence in the country. We are an open market economy and I do not doubt that we will come out of the recession, do well again and prepare for the upturn over the next 12 months. That upturn will only come if working capital is available to businesses and confidence is restored in the economy so that people are not afraid to trade or buy goods and services and are not worried that their bank managers are waiting to take them into surgery and dissect them.

Mick Barry

by Socialist Party councillor, Mick Barry

Ireland’s political and business establishment are calling for a YES vote in the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that it will be good for jobs and the economy. The irony is that these are precisely the people whose greed and mismanagement have pushed unemployment towards the 500,000-mark and have driven the economy onto the rocks.

Now they are attempting to use the fear engendered by their economic mismanagement to further their pro-big business and anti-worker agenda. Rather than being “good for jobs” Lisbon would severely hamstring any European government that made job creation central to its agenda.

A government which chose to prioritise job creation through state initiatives such as major public works programmes would most likely have to borrow heavily to do so. However, a protocol attached to Lisbon for the future fixes a maximum allowable Budget deficit of 3 per cent of GDP and borrowing of 60 per cent of GDP.

Lisbon’s article 126 (TFEU) states that the Council of Finance Ministers “shall adopt” recommendations from the EU Commission “with a view to bringing that situation to an end within a given period” when these ceilings are reached by a Member State.

These recommendations can be “to invite the European Investment bank to reconsider its lending policy toward the Member State concerned”, “to require the Member State concerned to make a non-interest-bearing deposit of an appropriate size with the EU until the excessive deficit has, in the view of the Council, been corrected” and to “impose fines of an appropriate size”.

In this sense, Lisbon represents a giant roadblock to job creation. The real big business agenda was revealed last year when IBEC stated in a submission to the National Forum on Europe: “The Lisbon Reform treaty creates the legal basis for the liberalisation of services of general economic interest.

A yes vote creates the potential for increased opportunities for Irish business, particularly in areas subject to increasing liberalisation such as health, education, transport, energy and the environment.”   In this context “liberalisation” is code for “privatisation”.

Member States currently have an unqualified veto to prevent a trade agreement being foisted on them which would force them to open up their health, education or cultural and audiovisual services to be traded as commodities.  This unqualified veto would be ended by Lisbon.

The Lisbon Treaty will push European governments to devote a greater percentage of national resources to military spending.  Article 42 TEU states: “Member States shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities.”  You can’t get much clearer than that.  This means increasing spending on military matters and it will mean doing so at precisely the time when governments are cutting back on health, education and vital social services.  These priorities are all wrong.

Furthermore, Lisbon gives the European Defence Agency an institutional basis in a European treaty for the first time.  The EDA’s tasks include “implementing any measures needed to strengthen the industrial and technological base of the defence sector” and to participate in “defining a European capabilities and armaments policy” (Article 42 TEU).

France, Germany, Sweden, Britain and Italy account for one-third of the world’s arms deals.  This deadly trade will be boosted significantly should Lisbon be passed. The Government will propose this week that approximately 60 billion euro be used to bail out the banks with the establishment of NAMA.  UCD Professor of Economics Morgan Kelly estimated this week that this bailout could end up costing the taxpayer tens of billions of euro.

At the same time this Government are planning 3,000 million euro worth of cuts in the December Budget and a raft of new taxes including the taxation of child benefit. The Government arrive back from their long summer holidays this week with the NAMA proposals and the Bord Snip report in one hand and the Lisbon Treaty in the other.

They are complementary proposals:  they all aim to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of the interests of both the working class and the middle class.  It is in the interest of ordinary people to unite against them all.

This means voting NO on October 2.  But it also means using a NO vote as the start for a real fight back on the issues of jobs, cuts and vicious tax increases.