People Before Profit Condemns Bail-out of Irish Banks As a Reward for Corporate Greed

The People Before Profit Alliance today condemned the government bail-out of Irish banks. Its spokesperson Richard Boyd Barrett said

‘The decision of the Irish government to bail-out all the Irish banks is a shocking example of corporate welfare for the super rich. The government’s actions stand in stark contrast to its failure to bail-out our crumbling health service or address escalating levels of unemployment. Ordinary people will be shocked to learn that this government, and most of the political parties, place the greatest priority on the needs of wealthy bankers and speculators ahead of their right to a decent health service’.

Poor people who rely on public services have been told that there is no money to prevent severe cuts. Young people who work for the government and have huge mortgages will suffer because their employer says it cannot pay them any wage increase for the next 11 months, as ‘there is no money’ in the coffers. Yet at the stroke of a pen, the Irish taxpayer has been exposed to a huge risk of the order of €400 -€500 billion to save banks. Such a level of risk is more than twice the value of the whole Irish economy.

Mr Boyd Barrett said that, ‘the government have effectively rewarded corporate greed’.

‘The policies of lending institutions in recent years have encouraged an unsustainable speculative boom, particularly in property. In their desire to make ever more profits, and generate ever-bigger bonuses for their executives, the banks recklessly handed out money to developers creating a property bubble, an inevitable crash and now a mountain of bad debt.

Incredibly, the government are using taxpayer’s money to guarantee the future of these banks but doing nothing to ensure that the same thing does not happen again. As it stands, these same banks will simply move on now to repossess the homes of ordinary people who are being crucified by the economic crisis created by those same banks and heir develop friends.

Instead of bailing out the banks, the state should have nationalised them in order to put an end to an orgy of greed that now threatens catastrophe’.

Mr Boyd Barrett says this whole debacle ‘confirms, yet again, the need for a new political movement to represent ordinary working people, the poor and the marginalized. The public must demand a fundamental re-appraisal of economic priorities and develop a political movement that has the courage to stand up to bankers, developers and a greed-driven corporate elite.’