The 100,000 or more people who will emigrate from Ireland this year are the casualties of a Government that has made a priority of saving a delinquent bank, Labour Party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said today.
She told the party’s national conference in Galway that Brian Cowen had got everything wrong from the day he entered the Department of Finance right up to the catastrophic decision on that fateful night when he opted to protect Anglo Irish Bank at any price with a blanket guarantee.
She said that decision was a millstone on the entire economy and would remain a millstone for years to come.
“Billions have been devoted over the past 18 months to protect our financial system from alleged Armageddon, with not a murmur of value for money.
"This mind boggling sum is more than has ever been spent on any project by any government in our history. For what enduring purpose, may I ask?
“I can tell you the cost. This year we will lose 100,000 of our people through emigration. Ministers shrug off these facts as the casualties of war.
"They are no such thing.
“They are the deliberate casualties of a set of policies that gives priority to the rescue of one particular bank and one building society whose sole claim to fame is that they were joined at the hip to Fianna Fáil in the boom years,” said Ms Burton.
She added that the delinquent bank looked after the developers and in turn the developers looked after Fianna Fáil.
“And today Fianna Fáil is using our money to repay the debt it owes them, no matter how many billions it costs and how many jobs disappear in the process.
“It is an entirely cynical, deeply corrupt exercise and the young men and women who are applying for Canadian and Australian work visas are the human casualties of that corruption.”
She said the core of Labour’s economic strategy was to reverse that and to put investment in jobs to the front and centre of public policy.
“All we have got so far on jobs is a timid mishmash of pathetic gestures introduced for political cover.
“For us job investment has to have as great a status as budgetary measures in the next phase of recovery. It is only when we get to grips with the employment issue that we can build public confidence in recovery.
“This is a fundamental point. It is a gross deception to pretend Ireland’s economic problems are wholly caused by international conditions,” she said.