SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams has said that telling the IMF “to go home and take their money with them” remained his party’s policy.
His said his party, in government, would close Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, and amalgamate AIB and Bank of Ireland. Depositors would be protected by legislation.
“We would create funding to protect those who are already in employment, particularly small, native, indigenous businesses, and, also, to create new jobs,” he added.
Mr Adams said that Sinn Féin would deal with the exchequer deficit of €19 billion over six years rather than four years.
“We would argue the funds are there to run the State for the remainder of this year,” he added.
“We would burn the bank bondholders and introduce a bank resolution Bill to protect depositors.”
Asked how much it would cost to recapitalise the banks once they were amalgamated, Mr Adams did not give a specific figure.
The markets would then see, said Mr Adams, that Ireland had cleaned up its act, got rid of the bad debt and stimulated the economy. Astute bondholders would do business with the country, he added.
The party, he said, would fund the exchequer deficit in the following years by returning to the bond markets no later than 2012, having separated the private debt from bank debt.
Mr Adams, who was speaking yesterday on the RTÉ radio programme, This Week, again insisted that the party had not supported the blanket bank guarantee in the Dáil. Sinn Féin, he said, had wanted to protect the rights of depositors and voted in principle for it in the first vote.
However, the party had voted against it when it failed to get guarantees relating to depositors and credit for small and medium businesses.
Sinn Féin, said Mr Adams, had refused to support the substantive blanket guarantee.
Asked about the drop in the polls in his personal rating, from 40 per cent a year ago to 28 per cent, Mr Adams said there was a general dissatisfaction with political parties.
“But Sinn Féin is different from the other political parties,” he added. “As politicians often say, in response to that type of question, there has not been a vote cast. Let the voters decide; opinion polls will come and go but the voters will decide.”