Dail address on Bank Bailout and EU-IMF Arrangement 6th April 2011

I support the amendment to the motion. The situation we find ourselves in as a country is unforeseen, and it is the fact it is unforeseen that is one of the biggest problems I have. What does “unforeseen” mean? Does it mean nobody was paying attention and that there were no watchdogs or caretakers in recent years? The dictionary definition of “unforeseen” is unexpected, not predicted, surprising, sudden or accidental. However, this was no accident, and the signs were there if the last Government was looking for them.

However Ireland came to be in such a state, this Government has to deal with the legacy and we must face the resolution together as a country. In an ideal world where there were no risks or consequences, the idea of the proposed referendum might be a good one. Then again, if we lived in ideal world, we probably would not be in the situation we are in today. A motion such as this only serves one purpose, namely, to give the people of Ireland a false sense of hope, which to my mind is a cruel and unusual punishment.

We are but a few weeks after a general election where the Irish people gave the Government the mandate to sort out the economic situation, which is what we are doing. We are committed to a programme of financial support for Ireland but one must remember that the EU-IMF deal is negotiable and, therefore, it can be amended to accommodate the new programme for Government, provided the aggregate fiscal adjustments are respected.

Hypothetically, if this referendum was to take place and the result was to reject the bailout deal, what then? What is the Technical Group’s plan after that? Is there a plan? If there is one, I have not heard it, other than in regard to the plan to raise corporation tax, the one tested initiative that brings tens of thousands of foreign investment created jobs to this country to support Irish families. If that is what is on offer, I could not agree to it, and it seems the best on offer here is to jeopardise those jobs.

The reason there has been general acceptance of the EU-IMF deal thus far is because there is no other feasible or workable alternative. From where does the Technical Group propose we get our future funding? While there have been many criticisms of the renegotiation process and many ideas on what we should do immediately, no long-term plans have been proposed. With the EU-IMF deal, we have a plan. It may not be as good as we hoped but it is a workable plan that will see results.

In the history of the State there has never been an ordinary referendum, which is the type of referendum proposed in this motion. While there have been referendums on Lisbon, Nice, divorce and so on, these all went to change elements of the Constitution, the very foundation of our State, whereas this proposal would not.

We said throughout the general election campaign that there would be greater transparency when it came to all matters of Government and we have been truthful with the Irish people. I reject the comments Deputy Adams made yesterday that Fine Gael has done a complete U-turn on its five-point plan. The Government has been working steadily for the people of this country since it was elected and it will continue to do so. Now is not the time for a referendum; now is the time to boost the confidence of Irish businesses and gain European and international trust in doing business in our country. We need to prove Ireland is a stable country in which to set up business.

We have no choice but to honour the commitments made by the previous Government to protect those whose funds are guaranteed by the State in order to move Ireland’s growth and development onwards. Since the announcement of the stress test results and the Government’s restructuring plans for the banking sector, we have seen a rise in Bank of Ireland shares. This type of confidence has not been seen in Irish banking shares for a very long time. The banking system is a key enabler of economic activity and a return of this type of confidence will assist the Government’s jobs strategy success. We will continue on a path towards recovery. We will make the jobs fund a major priority to support employment and encourage sustainable enterprise. In this way we will reach the targets under the EU-IMF programme, thus reducing the pain felt by individual families throughout Ireland. That is our priority. I trust the Government to fulfil the promises my party made during the election campaign. I commend the amendment to the motion to the House.

Regina Doherty TD condemns the tragic murder of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr

Deputy Regina Doherty today spoke of her horror of the murder of PSNI Officer Ronan Kerr over the weekend. The 25 year old was brought home to Bernagh, Co. Tyrone where his mother and family will lay him to rest tomorrow.  

Doherty agrees with the statement that the murder of PC Kerr on Saturday was ‘a useless attack on the peace process.’

“As a mother myself, I can only imagine the tragic sense of loss to his family and friends. This was a deplorable act committed by people with no respect for the peace process and the people of Northern Ireland. These people do not speak for anybody and are flying in the face of the people of Northern Ireland and all those who respect the authorities on both sides of the border.”

Constable Ronan Kerr had only recently qualified as a PSNI officer which seems to add and extra sense of tragedy to his death; he was one of the many individuals who trained hard to work to protect the community he served when his life was needlessly cut short.

‘This act is a devastating blow for all those who worked for and are committed to peace and democracy.’

‘The fact that the identity of the attackers is still unknown and that no one group or person has taken responsibility for this act of violence is a terrifying thought. These criminals clearly have access to very dangerous explosives and are using them against their fellow countrymen but to what end’

Deputy Doherty fully supports the statement of the Justice Minister Alan Shatter to aid the investigation in ‘leaving no stone unturned’ in the pursuit of justice for Ronan Kerr and his family.

Doherty would like to convey ‘her sincerest and deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Brian Kerr’.

Fine Gael will protect the frontline, modernise public services and ensure pay is not hit

Labour and Fianna Fáil will hit the pay packets of all workers hard

Fine Gael’s 5 Point Plan will get Ireland Working and will modernise public services, protect the frontline, ensure public sector pay is not hit and support the taxpayer according to Fine Gael’s Meath East Regina Doherty.

“A key element of Fine Gael’s 5 Point Plan to get Ireland Working is to modernise our public services and reward effort and innovation while penalising waste and inefficiency.

“Fine Gael is committed to the public service. In a time of austerity when cuts are being made across the board, Fine Gael is determined to protect vital frontline services in the public sector provided by doctors, nurses, teachers, Gardaí and local authority workers.

“Other political parties scaremonger and tell lies. Fine Gael is offering a serious plan. Under our plan, the frontline will be protected, there will be no compulsory redundancies and pay will not be hit.

“The reality is quite stark: if we do not make savings in our public sector, then all staff will end up with their pay being hit or their taxes being hiked. We believe we can save over €5 billion, or 1 euro in 10 spent by public bodies, by confronting waste, duplication and inefficiency. We recently set out how we anticipate making significant savings through:

• Streamlining processes by the creation of a Single Public Entitlement Service, Business Inspectorate and Licence Authority;
• Abolishing over 145 Quangos, State bodies and companies;
• Dismantling the HSE;
• A one third reduction in civil service back office staff;
• Streamlining services.

“In contrast, Labour and Fianna Fáil are determined to tax all workers far more severely. This means that all workers, including those in the public sector, will see their pay packets hit hard by Labour and Fianna Fáil.

“The public sector has a key role to play in rebuilding Ireland. We believe the vast majority of public servants do an absolutely vital job and recognise that many public servants feel they are being unfairly targeted as a result of a crisis they did not create.

“Fine Gael has already committed to not increasing income tax rates, bands or allowances for all workers. In order for us to deliver on this commitment, we must make savings across the system. If those savings are to be made we are absolutely committed to protecting the frontline service providers.”

FG to help mortgage holders as numbers in arrears spirals upwards

Fine Gael will provide assistance for struggling homeowners as the number of people in mortgage arrears continues to spiral upwards, Fine Gael candidate in Meath East Regina Doherty has stated today (Monday).

“The number of people unable to meet their mortgage repayments for the past three months has reached 45,000.  This is a clear indication that Fine Gael’s proposals for homeowners need to be implemented to help ordinary people cope with unsustainable mortgage repayments. 

“Fine Gael has outlined its commitment of making the banks work for the people, and to bring some much needed relief for the negative equity generation who have been hit hardest by the property bubble. 

Fine Gael will benefit mortgage holders by:
1. Increasing mortgage interest relief to 30% for First Time Buyers in negative equity who bought from 2004 – 2008.
2. Introducing a Deferred Interest Scheme enabling borrowers to pay at least 66% of their mortgage interest for up to five years.
3. Putting a stop to banks penalising mortgage holders who have rescheduled their debt by putting them on a higher cost rate.
4. Introducing a trade down option to produce a reduction in mortgage debt and more affordable monthly payments.
5. Amending legislation to allow people access to their pension funds to service their mortgages.

“Irresponsible lending, facilitated by a Fianna Fail led government, has left people in fear of losing their homes. Fine Gael’s Five Point Plan will ensure that the banks and the government will work for people who are faced with mortgage arrears, and share the burden of negative equity.”

FG target €1bn saving in welfare fraud crackdown

A core objective of Fine Gael’s Five Point Plan to Get Ireland Working is to create a smaller, more efficient and better public sector, Fine Gael Meath East Candidate Regina Doherty said today (Saturday).

“Fine Gael believe we can double the outgoing government’s existing target for fraud of €500 million, by introducing a range of targeted new policies. In the same way that Fine Gael has declared ‘all-out’ war on white collar crime and rogue bankers, we will target welfare fraud and secure savings of €1 billion by year three of a new government,” Cllr. Doherty said.

Among the measures planned is the creation of a single Payments and Entitlements Service (PES), along the lines of the very successful Australian ‘Centrelink’ scheme, that will merge or rationalise the existing 20 Government bodies which process welfare payments to the public.

Cllr. Doherty said: ‘Fine Gael has a new solution to tackle social welfare fraud and make the system much more efficient. Fine Gael will create a new ‘one-stop shop’ Payments and Entitlements Service (PES) to process citizen entitlements’.

“The PES will use international best practices to cut down on fraud and mistakes. It will introduce:

• A ‘Smart Identity System’: We will pilot new control systems which store a photograph of the owner of each PPS number on a secure central database accessible by social welfare staff. The photograph confirms the identity of the claimant before the payment is processed;
• Risk Based Enforcement: We will adopt sophisticated risk identification techniques, such as using information from credit rating agencies, to detect fraud and errors;
• A ‘Rights and Obligations Campaign’: We will pilot public information campaigns which emphasise the rights and obligations of claimants, but which warn of the consequences of defrauding the system. This approach has been shown to cut fraud among high risk groups in other countries;
• A National Fraud Helpline: We will establish a national fraud helpline and undertake a long-term publicity campaign to change people’s attitudes about the acceptability of fraud;
• Penalties and Prosecutions: We will introduce new powers to withdraw or reduce benefit for people convicted twice of a benefit offence, and the power to target employers who collude in welfare fraud.

“Entitlements are currently processed by more than 20 different government bodies. This is extremely inconvenient, confusing for the applicant, a huge waste of taxpayers’ money, and results in vast amounts of fraud and error.

“The new ‘One Stop Shop’ will begin processing supplementary welfare allowances managed by Community Welfare Officers in the HSE (mortgage interest supplement, rent supplement, back to school schemes); medical card applications administered by the HSE; higher education grants administered by local authorities; housing supports administered by local authorities; legal aid services administered by the Legal Aid Board; welfare allowances administered by the Department of Social Protection; and employment referral and training supports provided by FÁS and many more."

“RTE’s Prime Time Investigates programme in December 2009 estimated that between one in ten and one in seven social welfare payments could be fraudulent, costing the taxpayer between €2.2 billion and €3 billion per year. We have to stop this.

“At best, therefore, there is a 90% accuracy rate on social welfare payments in Ireland. By setting up Centrelink, Australia managed to increased accuracy to 95%. If Ireland could achieve similar levels of accuracy, we could achieve €1 billion in fraud savings.

“Fine Gael is determined to slash the waste in the system so that we can keep taxes as low as possible and support jobs. One way to do this is to go to war on welfare fraud. We are convinced that €1 billion can be saved by year three of this campaign. That type of saving will go a long way to protecting payments to the most vulnerable, and allow us to keep income tax rates at the levels they are today.”

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Fine Gael pledges law to tag sex offenders within 12 months + ‘Sarah’s Law’ on sex offenders

Cllr Regina Doherty welcomed today the Fine Gael plans to tag convicted sex offenders within 12 months of forming a new government.“In 2010 there were nearly 2,400 sexual offences recorded in Ireland. Yet sex offenders are being granted remission and released back into our communities often without having received rehabilitation and without proper supervision on release.“More than 98 sex offenders will be released this year. Only 22 of them have undergone rehabilitation therapy. While tagging cannot be implemented retrospectively, this situation should never have evolved. Fine Gael will, if elected, introduce legislation to address the issue as a matter of urgency. In Ratoath last year we had a case where a sex offender was to be housed to allow him to be  “reintegrated” back into society, without the knowledge of the residents of Ratoath.  This is not acceptable and will not happen under a Fine Gael governenment.”  “As far back as January 2009 former Justice Minister Dermot Ahern promised to legislate for the introduction of electronic tagging but like many of his promises it never happened. If elected Fine Gael will do what the current Government could only talk about.“Fine Gael has long held the view that the tagging of sex offenders is the only foolproof way of monitoring the movements of convicted sex offenders on their release from prison and is the best means of protecting people in our communities.“We also believe that Gardaí need every power to collect ‘soft information’ related to child offenders. Accordingly, we will adopt into Irish law the provisions of the UK ‘Sarah’s Law’. This will allow parents, guardians and carers to ask Gardaí whether people who have access to their child have committed child sexual offences. Gardaí would then have the option to reveal the information, or take further action if they believe there is further risk.”

Fine Gael will overhaul laws relating to “White Collar Crime”

Fine Gael Cllr Regina Doherty welcomed her Party’s commitment to urgently overhauling the laws relating to ‘white collar crime’ and to ensuring that all available expertise is brought to bear in securing the conviction of rogue bankers whose alleged actions have foisted a generation of debt on the back of taxpayers.“The Irish State has been brought to the edge of an economic cliff as a result of the catastrophic financial negligence and incompetence of Fianna Fáil. Their failures related not just to appalling fiscal mismanagement, but also to their gross negligence in failing to ensure the banking system was properly regulated. This failure to implement proper oversight of rogue bankers has had devastating financial consequences for taxpayers who now, unfairly, have had not just State debt but also the massive bank debt foisted on their shoulders.“It is over two years since the share dealings and financial transactions involving our financial institutions were revealed. Yet not one charge has been brought in our courts as a consequence of alleged improper financial transactions. There is understandable outrage and widespread concern that there is one law for the ordinary man and woman, and another for bankers who have to date escaped punishment for alleged crimes, the cost of which is even yet to be finalised.“Fine Gael is determined that any of those who broke the law will be brought before our courts. We are concerned at the length of time it is taking for the completion of the investigation underway by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.“We know that more than 100,000 documents, including bank records, have had to be analysed in the context of the ongoing investigation and in excess of more than 350 people have been interviewed. We are greatly concerned that there are only two civilian forensic accountants employed full time by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation. Fine Gael in government will ensure that the Gardaí are properly resourced to bring this important investigation to a conclusion.“If returned to government Fine Gael will, in its first year in office, streamline and update our laws relating to corporate and white collar crime to take account of all recent advances in data retention technology. We will enact provisions to ensure that An Garda Síochána has full access to all information relevant to such investigations, and necessary expertise to access, collate and analyse crucial information.

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