Treaty pushes privatisation - Higgins

SOCIALIST PARTY:THE LISBON Treaty makes increased privatisation in health, education and other public services more likely, according to Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins.

Mr Higgins said the treaty removed the absolute veto over the discussion of essential public services at world trade talks, and replaced it with a qualified one. As a result, decision-making powers over health and education would be taken out of the hands of the Irish Government.

Ibec knew this, Mr Higgins told a press conference, because it has already argued that Lisbon would create the legal basis for the liberalisation of services in areas such as health, education, transport, energy and the environment.

Eddie Conlon, a lecturer at Dublin Institute of Technology, said the “corporate agenda” was firmly entrenched in education, where considerable privatisation had already taken place. Lisbon would deepen this process and make it irreversible, he claimed.

He said the Yes side in the referendum treaty debate were advocates of greater and deeper private sector involvement in education and it was “self-evident” that further liberalisation was envisaged in the treaty.

Healthcare policy analyst Marie O’Connor also claimed the treaty would lock in “galloping privatisation” of the health sector. “It battens down the hatches against the concept of a public health service.”

She claimed the only beneficiaries would be private healthcare operators from the US, many of which had a background in fraud. “The old idea that healthcare policy should be left to member states is now dead, and has been for some time.”

Asked about fellow No campaigners Cóir’s claims that the treaty could reduce the minimum working wage to €1.84, Mr Higgins said this was a “distraction” from the central issue of workers’ rights under Lisbon.

Recent judgments of the European Court of Justice in this area had prompted a “race to the bottom” and this was the real issue, he said.