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Keaveney and Doherty clash on NAMA
21.09.09
DONEGAL politicians
have clashed on NAMA with Fianna Fáil Senator
Cecilia Keaveney calling the bank rescue scheme
"good for Inishowen" while Sinn Féin Senator Pearse
Doherty dubbed it "a bailout for the greediest in
Irish society".
Senator Cecilia Keaveney described the proposal to
spend €54 billion on toxic bank loans as good news
for the local economy.
“Since the country’s financial difficulties began a
year ago, local businesses have suffered with their
access to credit from banks being severely hampered.
This has put businesses and employers in Inishowen
and all over Donegal under severe pressure and has
resulted in the failure of enterprises and an
increase in unemployment," she said.
“NAMA will ensure that credit flows again to viable
businesses and households in Donegal by freeing up
the banks to lend again. This is essential for our
economic recovery and to secure jobs and
businesses.”
The Moville-based senator said NAMA was "not about
bailing out the banks" but about "securing the flow
of credit for Donegal businesses and households". |
“If Irish banks were
allowed to fail it would have devastating
consequences for us all. It could result in the loss
of savings for customers and would undermine
confidence in the whole sector requiring even
greater intervention to repair the damage," she
added. But Senator Doherty and Fine Gael Deputy Joe
McHugh see things in starkly different terms.
Senator Doherty said the biggest losers if NAMA is
adopted, would be the unemployed, ordinary mortgage
holders and the least well off who would be "hit by
savage Budget cuts". He called for nationalisation
of the main banks and the development of a State
bank.
“There is no doubt whatsoever about who Fianna Fáil
and the Greens are serving with this rotten Bill. It
is a bailout for the greediest in Irish society –
the bankers and the speculators whose boundless
greed has |
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devastated the Irish
economy.
“Throughout the Celtic Tigers years, Fianna Fáil-led
Governments pampered this elite group. They allowed
them to benefit from massive tax breaks at unknown
cost to the State. They allowed them to determine
the State’s housing policy – a policy which was no
policy but to let the market drive everything. And
boy did that market drive. It drove property prices
to unreal and unsustainable levels.
“It drove a frenzy of greed for profitable property,
inducing many who could not afford to do so, to
borrow to buy in the grossly inflated market. It
drove debt to levels previously unknown in this
country. It was fuelled by cheap loans supplied by a
banking system corrupted by the culture of greed
that saw massive salaries, bonuses and perks
lavished at all senior levels in the financial
institutions. And finally the locomotive was driven
into a wall and we are now left to deal with the
train wreck that is the Irish economy," said Senator
Doherty.
Meanwhilel, Deputy McHugh said it would be the
ordinary people who would pay for NAMA and "failed
property developments". "Half a million residents of
this island are unemployed, and the Government is
introducing a Bill that imposes a debt of €22,500 on
every Irish citizen.
"Britain bailed out its banks some months ago, and
today in London, banks are making the same mistakes
that they made in the past – uncosted loans, 110%
mortgages, and bonuses. Ireland must not make the
same mistake. We need to change our banks, not
restore them," he said. |
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