New bank will fuel recovery, says Kenny

Fine Gael national conference : FINE GAEL would scrap plans to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and instead use the money to start …

Fine Gael national conference: FINE GAEL would scrap plans to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and instead use the money to start a national recovery bank, party leader Enda Kenny said last night.

Opening the Fine Gael national conference in Killarney, Mr Kenny said his party had a plan to create and protect 180,000 jobs.

“Instead of borrowing billions more to bail out Anglo Irish Bank, as the Government proposes, we would use the same money to start a new national recovery bank that ties further Government support for the banks to new lending and job creation,” he told the conference.

Mr Kenny said the Fine Gael economics team, led by Richard Bruton, had developed plans for getting the country back to work.

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“Unlike this Government, we know that we cannot fix the banks and the public finances unless we also fix the jobs crisis and the real economy. Unlike this Government, we know that job creation and growth is the solution to the biggest economic and social problems facing our country,” he said.

Mr Kenny said that instead of slashing investment in vital infrastructure, as the Government proposed, Fine Gael would create over 100,000 jobs through an €18 billion major upgrading of water, broadband and energy, paid for in part by selling assets that the State no longer needs.

“Instead of more tax hikes that will destroy jobs, as the Government proposes, we would cut taxes on jobs and struggling sectors of the economy until the recession is over.

“Instead of borrowing billions to subsidise idleness, dependency and poverty for unemployed people, we would use the social welfare budget to subsidise jobs and to create tens of thousands of new second chance education and training opportunities,” he added.

Mr Kenny also said that instead of improving competitiveness through more cuts in pay for low- and middle-income workers, as the Government was threatening, Fine Gael would promote exports and inward investment by forcing down high prices for rent, electricity, transport and professional services.

“To put it simply, Ireland is not working and cannot go on like this. This recession was not visited upon us like some plague from Mars. It is Fianna Fáil’s recession. It is Brian Cowen’s recession. It is the legacy of Fianna Fáil’s ‘when we have it we spend it’ approach to managing the economy, like benchmarking without reform. It is the legacy of the Galway tent.

“Now that Brian Cowen’s property bubble has burst, the Government has no plan or vision to return Ireland to prosperity. It is being led by events, responding to one new crisis after another,” said Mr Kenny.

He said the greatest victims of the strategy would be the young generation. “While accounting for less than half of the workforce, those under 34 years of age have suffered 85 per cent of the job losses. Another 60,000 will leave our country this year. This cannot go on.”

Pointing to the fact that he was speaking in Killarney, the home of Irish tourism, Mr Kenny said hundreds of jobs had been lost there due to the downturn in the industry over the past two years.

“It is fitting therefore that I announce from here that next week Fine Gael will bring a motion to the Dáil that calls for the immediate abolition of the €10 travel tax on tourists that has done such damage to this vital job-intensive industry,” he said.

He added that nothing summed up the Government’s short-sighted, self-defeating approach to fixing the economy than the imposition of the travel tax in 2008, which had only netted €100 million in tax, but had “destroyed 3,000 jobs”.