Boyd Barrett: Blueprint a 'cynical pincer movement'
Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit party has slammed the Blueprint for Ireland's Recovery as a "cynical" move by corporate vultures to exploit the recession and "asset strip the country".
The blueprint was drafted by a group of 17 Irish business and public figures and submitted to Government yesterday.
The report is named A Blueprint for Ireland’s Recovery and has been written by a group that is headed by businessman Philip Lynch and the chief executive of the Rehab Group, Angela Kerins.
Its authors include former European Parliament president Pat Cox; Michael Berkery, former chief executive of the Irish Farmers’ Association; former Taoiseach John Bruton; Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery; financier Dermot Desmond and businessman Leslie Buckley.
Richard Boyd Barrett said: "It is a cynical pincer movement with the IMF and the EU on one side and the government and super wealthy on the other side.
"This pincer movement will be at the expense of the ordinary citizens of the country while lining the pockets of the super-wealthy elite".
The TD believes that "far from selling assets we should be developing them to benefit our society, to create employment and deal with this crisis".
Recommendations from the group include reducing the public sector by around 30,000 jobs, reforming the social welfare system, and selling AIB and Bank of Ireland to international buyers.
"We need investment in these areas instead of paying bondholders and sinking us further into debt".
"The question has to be asked, if private business think they can make money from owning and developing our public assets then why can't the State do the same.
"The proposal in the report to cut 30,000 public sector jobs is obscene. These jobs must be protected".
He said his People Before Profit party is pledging to organise major campaigns to resist plans to sell off assets and natural resources.
He said: "I will be resisting these proposals with every fibre of my being and we will be moving immediately to mobilise the widest movement possible of opposition.
"I am particularly shocked that harbours and ports are to be sold yet this confirms warnings I made over recent months to sell of Dun Laoghaire and other harbours around country.
The blueprint advocates looking at the value of nuclear power, something which Mr Boyd Barrett said was "an outrageous assertion in light of what we see unfolding in Japan".
"With our natural resources such as gas and wind we do not need to look to nuclear power. This is yet another attempt at greedy profiteering."
