Tag: labour party

Alex selected as Candidate in forthcoming by-election

21st October 2008

Alex with Local Election candidate Richard Humphreys at tonight's convention

I’m pleased and deeply honoured to have been selected by the Labour Party organisation in Dublin South as our candidate in the forthcoming By-Election in Dublin South. This By-Election, necessitated by the sad passing of Seamus Brennan, will now come at a most crucial time for our country.

Never before have we had such a clear opportunity to make decisive choices about what are the important values to our society. The recent budget statement – now apparently unravelling by the day – is the clearest evidence yet of this government’s failure on its most crucial responsibility: to secure the wellbeing of the citizens of the country, and to promote a caring and equal society. We are now reaping the errors of ten years of mismanagement and poor governance.

In due course, there will have to be a political reckoning as to what happened. As to what the current Taoiseach and indeed his predecessor as Taoiseach knew – and when did they know it. It is simply not credible to the Irish people that this economic crisis came out of nowhere. The vulnerability of our economy lies to a very considerable extent squarely at the door of the government. This is an issue which we will need to address in vigorous political debate.

At the moment, however, we are in a crisis. The solutions proposed by the government to redress the budgetary imbalance have seen cruel and unnecessary attacks on the future education of our young and the health and well being of our old. After many years of unprecedented growth and wealth generation these solutions are simply unacceptable. Labour, on the other hand, has put forward a bold and innovative programme to stimulate our economy. Over the coming months we will take this plan out to the doorsteps.

I look forward, along with many of my parliamentary and party colleagues to meeting with you and discussing the issues that are important to both of us, as we work towards delivering a decisive statement to this government that enough is enough, and that change is now required.

In this challenge, I hope I can count on your support.

Levy most dishonest tax increase ever seen

15th October 2008

Labour leader in the Seanad, Senator Alex White, described the announcement in the Budget of the new levy on income tax as the most “dishonest tax increase ever seen”.

Speaking during the Order of Business, Senator White said: “The levy represents the crudest, most regressive and most dishonest tax increase ever seen.

“It is a tax increase, yet the Government dares not speak its name.

“Recently, the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, appeared to advocate higher taxes for the higher paid, the rich and the super rich, with which I agreed. He stated that he would try to achieve such in Government, in which respect I would have supported him. Regrettably, he did not achieve it.

“Let us face up to the taxation system and the dishonesty and unfairness therein. The Government appears to want to have it both ways.  The Government is telling us to leave the debate on tax to the Commission on Taxation next year. But it then introduces an aggressive tax, undermining any suggestion of equity,” said Senator White.

Senator White added that the Government appeared to have embraced the notion of performance-related pay.

“Members of the Government have taken 10 per cent cuts, presumably based on their performances in recent months. I hope that they will revert to the House in the coming months regarding proposals on the inevitable further cuts in pay that they will need to take. The ultimate cut that they should take is not 10 per cent or 20 per cent. Rather, it is 100 per cent.”

Budget lacks vision on childcare

15th October 2008

Yesterday’s Budget was yet another disappointing example of the Government’s lack of vision and innovation on childcare.

Proposals by the National Economic and Social Forum, which were supported by my party, set out a universal system of early child care, which would cost less than the combination of funds currently dedicated to child care through the early child care supplement and the subvention scheme.

And yet, yesterday the Minister for Finance put more pressure on parents and childcare providers by reducing by almost a quarter the allocation for the National Investment Programme.

That programme provides grants for childcare providers, helping them set up new businesses and maintaining existing ones. Although providers want to maintain the cost of childcare at a manageable level for the average parent, this cut will only heap more pressure on providers and parents.

The Government is reneging on its own promise to stimulating childcare places and jobs in the sector.

It is yet another example of this Government’s lack of ambition and innovation to help the youngest and most vulnerable in our society.

At these pressing economic times, children should never be first to be targeted.

We could be innovative and adopt a child care system that would require less investment while achieving something real and substantial for our children.

We need to bring such thinking to bear on the budget in the coming days. I hope we will do that and discharge our responsibility as a Parliament in doing so.

At present there is no Irish guarantee

8th October 2008

I support and agree with concerns about the delay in bringing forward the scheme which the Minister for Finance said would come before both Houses. We have seen what happened this morning in the UK. I do not believe it is accurate to say that the UK Government has copied the Irish Government. That is not true. The UK Government has taken preference shares in the banks it has proposed to assist and it has included a requirement that any bank wishing to participate in the scheme must sign up to an agreement on executive pay and dividends. There are many other differences between the UK Government’s proposal and what has been done here.

The Financial Regulator has said there is no difficulty with the capitalisation of the Irish banks. However, we have been asked to accept other statements from and about the banks in recent months which have proven not to be true. I note a nuance in the comments of the Minister for Finance this morning. He says he does not believe there is a difficulty with under-capitalisation. However, the Minister for Finance rather ominously stated that things are changing by the day. Therefore, it is not at all clear that there is not a difficulty with under-capitalisation in the Irish banks. What is the current position in Ireland with respect to the guarantee?

There is no guarantee is the answer.

The Minister for Finance and the Government announced an intention to provide a guarantee, which was a plan for the future, but there is no guarantee for today. This is a serious situation of which I do not make light as a topic for debate. However, the seriousness of the situation is increased with a further delay in the presentation of the scheme.

The delay also raised the question of what we were doing here last week in the overnight session. What was the point of it? We passed enabling legislation which has not been acted upon. Therefore, apart from the amendments to the competition legislation which, although important are marginal, the content of the legislation, the scheme and the guarantee are meaningless because nothing has been carried out. What were we doing here overnight last week? I do not have any difficulty with making myself available, nor do my colleagues. However, the sum total of our efforts add to nothing as nothing has changed. Our job is not to provide an overnight supporters’ rally for the work of the Government or the Minister for Finance. We are legislators and we are constitutionally required to scrutinise proposed legislation. The scheme was supposed to be brought before the Houses. Unless and until this happens there is no Irish guarantee; it simply does not exist yet. This is a reflection of the seriousness of the matter.

The Government’s intentions are becoming less, rather than more, clear with each day. The Minister for Finance has now indicated, perhaps correctly - I do not claim he has no basis for the comments, but it shows how unclear the position is - the possibility of a limit on the amount of deposits banks can take on. The developments in the UK this morning will have implications for foreign owned banks operating in Ireland. That may have implications for our scheme and there is the wider EU context. The situation is sliding by the day. All of the talk and congratulation we indulged in last week for being first into the breech now rings hollow. It looks like we are now one of the last into the breech in completing a proper scheme to put before the Houses and implement a guarantee. At present there is no Irish guarantee.

More :: I raised these issues in the Seanad and they were featured on RTE’s Oireachtas Report. Click here to view the programme (from 6min 10secs onwards).

Good intentions on hunger need to produce clear results

8th October 2008

I welcome the publication of the Hunger Task Force’s excellent report. It contains not just an account of the problem but also contains quite a few compelling and clear pointers as to what might be done by countries, including Ireland, to attack this problem. I noted in particular the reference in the report to hunger being a failure of governance. If anything this is an understatement. The distinguished authors of the report state, “This amounts to a governance failure at many levels.” Perhaps the most devastating statement in the entire report is a self-evident statement but which bears repeating. “Despite numerous commitments, there appears to be a willingness amongst both the international community and national governments, to live with the current extent of global hunger.” It is unfortunate but this appears to be true. Whereas practical steps have been taken and many more can be taken, this is not a problem that we can say, with hand on heart, has in any sense been genuinely or substantively tackled by the international community with any kind of clear results in recent years, despite a considerable amount of good intentions at international level.

The Minister of State for Overseas Aid used the term, “war on hunger”. I agree with his use of such a phrase. However, it may seem a strange view but in the context of the war on terror, the notion of an international war on something has been devalued in many ways because of the manner in which that rhetoric has been used in the past six or seven years by some world leaders. The idea of a war on terror has been reduced to a rhetorical notion. When the Minister of State refers to a war on hunger I know he does not intend that to be a rhetorical statement but one that has real meaning. His reference to the question of political will is well taken because it is a question of political will. We can outline and describe the problem and give examples and recall the historical significance of hunger and famine in our own country. I do not mean to devalue the contributions but it is more difficult to ensure that the fundamental problem is dealt with.

I congratulate the authors of this report and I congratulate the Government for publishing it. We have had in recent days a good deal of political debate and argument about a certain other matter, described by a Minister as “the current position” regarding the banking and economic crisis. There will be political disagreement on that issue but there will never be political disagreement with the Government on the part of my party in so far as the Government is dealing with this issue. There will not be one moment of disagreement nor a moment of opposition from my party.

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Time for the Oireachtas to scrutinise the financial mechanisms

1st October 2008

It is completely misleading for anybody to give the impression that the package proposed in the legislation currently before the Dáil does not come at a cost to the State and the Exchequer. The extent to which that was suggested, implied or, I believe, stated by the Taoiseach yesterday was that no money is changing hands. On the face of it, that is true, but it is only half or a very small part of the picture. First, there is the obvious cost associated with a risk, namely, if this guarantee is called upon at some point in the future. The guarantee would not be given or would not count for anything unless there was a prospect or a possibility at least that it would be called upon at some point in the future. That is a cost or at least a contingent cost or liability.

A second cost is that there is a real risk that the ability of the Irish State to borrow and the interest rates that would be charged to the State on foot of those borrowings will be affected by this. There is a real risk that will occur. That takes the matter into the political arena. It was always a political question but it makes it a highly political question for us and a huge issue in terms of the democratic dimension for these Houses because it affects the ability of the State and the Exchequer to expend money on public services, including health. The Minister for Health and Children said yesterday that the likelihood of increases in expenditure on health would be negligible in the coming period. There is a not even a potential but a very real and likely cost to the State.

This brings me back to the point I raised yesterday, which relates to these Houses and the effect or involvement we should have in this regard into the future. We want more detail from the Minister for Finance as to how he will exercise the powers he will take and the extent of the scrutiny that will be brought to bear on the banks, but what about the scrutiny that the Houses of the Oireachtas should be involved in regard to these matters? I mentioned the issue yesterday in regard to the Joint Committee on Finance and Public Service and that perhaps we should consider having a more dedicated committee or facility for the Houses to examine the question of the banks. The Joint Committee on Finance and Public Service dealt with this issue and I took the opportunity last night to check back on the debate on the matter in July.

I suggest that people examine the transcript because on any reading of it, one would not describe what occurred as a debate. It appeared, from what was stated, that there was no problem at all. The representatives of the various banks stated that there were no issues arising, that there few loans at 100% and that there were no concerns. That was the tenor and level of the debate that took place in July.

What happened in the interim? We are aware of what occurred in the United States but what gave rise to the so-called catastrophe into which we were facing? The Houses should be involved in considering what took place during the past three months. The role of the Financial Regulator should be examined. What about the role of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland? There are already suggestions in the United States that there should be criminal investigations in respect of what occurred on Wall Street. I am not stating that something similar should happen here but there should be a role for the Houses in scrutinising what took place during the past three months that led us to the position that obtained from Monday night into early Tuesday morning.

For the past six to 12 months, people in pubs and restaurants throughout the city have been discussing the possibility of a major bank collapsing. We were informed yesterday that this almost happened. There is a complete disconnect between these Houses, the Members of which are the democratic representatives of the people, and what is happening in the real world.

In that context, I reiterate that we should put in place a mechanism that would allow the Members of both Houses to scrutinise what is happening in the banks, examine the extent to which the new facility being afforded to them will be applied and consider the sensible proposals put forward by Opposition spokespersons in respect of what will be the payback to the taxpayer in light of the real cost that arises on foot of this proposal.

More :: Click here to read the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Bill 2008

Closing preschool education unit ‘shortsighted’ and ‘ludicrous’

23rd September 2008

The decision to close a unit, the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education, established to develop education for pre-school children is extremely short-sighted and a clear indicator of this Government’s lack of commitment to early education.

According to the department the closure of this unit and the loss of eight jobs is so the department can reconsider the structures established to support early education. If that is the case why shut down a unit staffed with experts in the field. What this decision does demonstrate is the Government’s lack of coherent childcare policy which is in stark contrast to Labour’s policy which is committed to the creation of a national system of child-centred and learning-focused preschool education.

As it stands less than one out of four of Irish children aged between three and four years old are currently in structured pre-school education. This contrasts with our European partners where at least two in every three children of that age enjoy such education. It is clear given that the Irish spend on per-school education is one of the lowest in developing countries, there is no serious consideration for pre-school education from the Government, at the very least the decision to close the unit proves this to be the case.

Education is the most important investment that we, as a nation, can ever make. Universal education is the key which unlocks the potential of every child. Pre-school education has been proven to tackle disadvantage which makes the decision to close this important unit in St Patrick’s Drumcondra all the more ludicrous. I am calling on the Government to reverse this cutback and commit properly to pre-school education.

More :: Education cutback closes pre-school unit (Irish Times)
More :: Click here to download Labour’s policy on pre-school education (PDF)

Labour warnings on new childcare funding scheme coming to fruition

26th August 2008

The government’s new Childcare Subvention Scheme is having a significantly negative effect on low and middle income families – just as the party had predicted.

Parents who are not in receipt of social welfare or Family Income Supplement are now facing into a winter of rising childcare prices which will inevitably result in a number of them either moving to part-time employment or leaving work altogether.

Last December in the Seanad I criticised the ‘narrow and limited focus’ of the scheme saying that they would do nothing to help the majority of families for whom childcare was ‘difficult to access and very expensive’.

Parents are now saying that they will have a price-hike of up to 100 per cent and for some it will make better economic sense to leave the workforce and care for their children full-time.

The Minister for Children launched these changes by repeatedly emphasising how much money - €153 million – was being spent ont he scheme. But again, it is those low-income families who fall just outside the social welfare criteria who will be hit the most. I was told of a family just yesterday who were paying €200 per week for the care of their two children but will now have to pay €360 under the new rules. The children’s mother is now considering leaving her job.

The changes to the scheme were motivated entirely by a short-term focus on cost, rather than on the needs of the child and working families.

Parents want what is best for their children. They are paying as much for childcare as they are in mortgage repayments. What we need is a real commitment to childcare for all families, and not the piece-meal and unjust system put in place by this government.

More :: Childcare price rises are looming, parents warned (Irish Times)
Keep in Touch :: Are you affected by the new rules on Childcare Subvention? Get in touch with us by commenting below or click on the ‘Contact Alex’ button.

Government ignoring Forum’s recommendations on Pre-School Education

29th July 2008

The release of the National Economic and Social Forum’s Periodic Report this week highlights the Government’s neglect of pre-school education.

During the general election campaign in 2007, Labour committed itself to offering one year of free pre-school education for every child regardless of income. It was part of a child-centred learning-focused system of childcare.

The NESF Report is damning of the government’s inaction in this area. This is their own advisory body labelling government policies as ‘weak’ and the report paints a picture of too many departments sharing responsibility for children.

It was the same body whose cost-benefit analysis showed that for every €1 spent on early childhood education the State would receive €7 later.

Labour took the analysis of the NESF and incorporated it into the Putting Children First document. Ireland spends less than 0.2% of GDP on our children when the EU average is 0.5%. A commitment to pre-school education is not in the current Programme for Government.

At a time when the Government is telling people to tighten their belts and look towards cost-savings, it would benefit the State to invest in pre-school education. The estimated €136 million annually it would cost to run the Labour-backed one year of free pre-school education is significantly less than the current early childhood care supplement.

As this report demonstrates, children were not a priority during the boom times. But it would be profoundly short-sighted to target childcare support in these more uncertain times.

More :: Click here to download the NESF’s Fifth Periodic Report (PDF)
More :: Click here to download Labour’s Putting Children First document from Election 2007

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