THE GOVERNMENT is forcing ordinary workers to bail out “an elite band of so far untouchable financial joyriders”, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation president said last night.
At the opening session of the union’s conference in Galway, Máire Ní Chuinneagáin said the State was facing the most serious challenge since its inception as a result of Government policies.
She said economic policy was making a bad situation worse and had caused the economy to crash spectacularly and unemployment to rocket, leaving emigration as the “default option” for thousands.
“Workers and those on welfare have been demonised and then penalised. Public services and small businesses are being decimated and vital capital investment curtailed,” said Ms Ní Chuinneagáin.
She said the wealth of recent years had been squandered and the financial future mortgaged to pay for the deeds of the few.
“The Nama revelations in the Dáil last week show the extent of the deception, the result of which is downward spiral for ordinary workers, local indigenous businesses and vulnerable members of our society – the young, the old, the sick and the unemployed.”
But she said instead of providing radical and determined action to begin a turnaround in the situation, the Government appeared determined to pursue policies that will burden this and future generations with horrific debt, she said. “This Government will turn recession into full-blown depression,” she said. “Their only plan it seems is to cling to the wreckage of their own disastrous economic policies.”
She said the Government equated patriotism with giving €40 billion to the lifeless Anglo Irish Bank, and the same again to the other banks while slashing the income of workers, welfare recipients and those with disabilities.
The conference was told that because of Government decisions underinvestment in education would continue.
“Every year for the foreseeable future, the equivalent of the annual education budget, currently half of EU norms, will be used simply to pay the interest on the Nama debt,” said Ms Ní Chuinneagáin.
She told the conference, attended by 750 delegates, that in Ireland “unwanted hotel rooms and unsold apartments sit side by side with prefabs that pass for classrooms”. “That is the legacy of the elite band of financial joyriders who we are now forced to bail out,” she added.
On pensions, she said the “adequate” pensions of public sector workers were threatened in a race to the bottom. But she said there was no envy of public service pensions while the markets roared.
“It’s like the boy racer suddenly casting an envious eye on his mother’s family saloon after he has wrapped his sports car round a lamp post.” She said the Government could help transform education if it stopped making teachers’ lives more difficult, ended the demoralisation and devaluing of teachers and provided the necessary funding to run modern fit-forpurpose schools.