EUROPE:THE CHOICE facing Ireland was to fight our corner in Europe or go back to being a province of the United Kingdom and the politics of "ourselves alone", Minister of State for Finance Brian Hayes said in a talk to the MacGill Summer School last night.
“The politics of ‘ourselves alone’ comes straight from the North Korean school of economics. It is not the answer to Ireland’s current difficulties,” Mr Hayes said.
On the topic of “how long and how hard is the way to recovery”, Mr Hayes said it was important to understand the mandate given to the Government in the general election.
“People want the new Government to sort out the economic mess we are in and return the country to growth as soon as possible.
“Secondly, people want to see fundamental change in the political system and within our public service,” he said.
Irish independence was effectively “on hold”, he said. The only way to restore it fully was “to navigate our way through this crisis by working with the EU and the IMF”.
He added: “The only way to solve this problem is to fix the deficit and that inevitably means further cuts in public expenditure. Nobody owes us a living.”
Ireland is now among the most globalised economies in the world and, unlike Iceland or Argentina, could not devalue or print its own money, he said.
“Leaving the euro would double our debts overnight. Unlike others, we don’t have vast natural resources; we depend on our exports, we depend on trade and that requires us having an international economic profile.”
The political choice for Ireland was clear: “We fight our corner in Europe or we go back under Britain’s skirts.”
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said: “This State is not a loan loss spreadsheet. Our citizens are not mere statistics or pieces of data.
“Rather they are real people, hundreds of thousands of whom are suffering real hardship.
“Real and sustainable economic and social development can only take place if there is real and sustainable job growth. There can be no recovery without jobs.”
Mr Doherty said Sinn Féin would use part of the National Pension Reserve Fund to fast-track labour intensive infrastructure projects. Using funds from the reserve does not increase our deficit by a single cent, he said.
Economic and Social Research Institute economist Joe Durkan said it had been difficult to be positive in the past four years, but the shift from meeting domestic demand to exports by indigenous firms was a source of hope.
