The President of the Workers’ Party has said that today’s warning from Finance Minister Michael Noonan that rejection of the EU Fiscal Treaty will cause uncertainty is a hollow threat and an insult to the Irish people who have endured more than four years of continuing uncertainty and worry.
Mr. Finnegan said that the Fiscal Treaty will do nothing to end uncertainty about the economy because it does not purport to fix the economy, merely hand control over it to the unelected European Central Bank, Court of Justice and Commission.
“The only certainty that adopting the EU Fiscal treaty will create”, said Mr. Finnegan, “is the certainty of austerity continuing over a very long period of time and the ceding of fiscal and political sovereignty on a permanent basis. It is an insult for Minister Noonan to talk of uncertainty when the economy has been sent reeling from one crisis to another since 2008. Eighteen months ago Mr. Noonan and his colleagues told us that we could end uncertainty by electing a Fine Gael / Labour coalition but the uncertainty continues and the austerity has been ramped up. Working people want no more of that type of certainty”.

The Workers’ Party President added that “the Fiscal Treaty was not designed to solve Ireland’s financial woes, or those of the other Eurozone states, but rather to solve Germany’s problems and give Angela Merkel and her successors overarching control of the economies of other member states”.
“The Fiscal Treaty”, concluded Mr. Finnegan, “does not even guarantee access to ESM loans. As the Referendum Commission has clearly pointed out, passing this Treaty merely confers a formal right to apply for ESM funding. As anyone who is a bank customer knows, there is a major difference between the ability to apply for a loan and a guarantee that one can draw down such a loan”.