Hold referendum on Nama - Ó Caoláin

SINN FÉIN:SINN FÉIN Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin repeated his party's demand for a referendum on the Nama (National Asset Management Agency) legislation.

He said that the Constitution provided that the President could refuse to sign a Bill, passed by the Oireachtas, if it contained a proposal of such national importance that it required the will of the people to be sought. “If there ever was such a Bill, then this is definitely it,” Mr Ó Caolaín added.

He claimed the Government should go to the country, “either in a referendum on Nama or by pulling the plug on this disgraceful, discredited and bankrupt Government, thus allowing the people to vote in a general election”. There was no doubt, said Mr Ó Caoláin, about who Fianna Fáil and the Greens were serving “with this rotten Bill’’.

Nama, he added, was “a bailout for the greediest and the most corrupt in Irish society: the bankers and the speculators whose boundless avarice has devastated the economy”.

Throughout the Celtic Tiger years, Fianna Fáil-led governments pampered that elite group, said Mr Ó Caoláin.

He added: “They allowed them to determine the State’s housing policy, which was to let the market drive everything and, boy, did that market drive. “It drove property prices to unreal and unsustainable levels. It drove a frenzy of greed for profitable property, inducing many, who could not afford to do so, to borrow to buy in the grossly inflated market.

“It drove debt to levels previously unknown in this country. It was fuelled by cheap loans supplied by a banking system corrupted by the culture of greed that saw massive salaries, bonuses and perks lavished at all senior levels in the financial institutions.”