Order of Business - 25th November 2008

Order of Business - 25th November 2008
Senator David Norris: I support Senator Alex White's call for a debate on the economy, which is well overdue. I am not anything of an economist, but even I am concerned when there are reports in the newspapers to the effect that the former Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, is to approach some banking friends with a view to a dig-out and that these include J. C. Flowers, Carlyle and so on, with their associations to the Bush family, Mr. bin Laden's close relatives and so on. If these people are to come in and do a Tony O'Reilly on it, as he did with Eircom, the Irish taxpayer should be given a shot at it. If they are going to be able to get in and out within five years and make enormous profits, why do we not do it? That would be a useful employment of the pension funds. We should make a profit out of our own industry and kick the banks, if that is needed.
I also believe that we need a debate on the economy. As a simple person, I am astonished at the way matters are being managed. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer is reducing VAT while simultaneously we are putting it up. To add what Margaret Thatcher would have called the triple whammy, Dublin Corporation is shoving 3.5% on to the rates for businesses in central Dublin. That should make a happy Christmas for everybody. I notice there is a secular Christmas tree - there is no sign of a crib - sponsored by the Dublin City Centre Business Association. I doubt if its members will have such a happy Christmas, as might have been envisaged.
I support Senator Labrás Ó Murchú in regard to FÁS. The reports are disturbing and at a time of severe economic retrenchment it is provocative and aggravating to see the apparently exotic lifestyle of some of these people at the top of FÁS. I was not very impressed by the performance of the chief executive, although of course he was in a corner. He seemed to be trying to maintain two contradictory positions at the same time. He said one needed to go first class in order to arrive fresh at meetings. Then he said he did not cost the taxpayer any money because he had downgraded himself, not to economy class but to business class, in order to bring his wife with him at no extra cost to the taxpayer. He may have arrived comforted by the presence of his spouse, but I doubt whether he was as fresh as he might have been had he travelled solo in first class.
Senator Cecilia Keaveney: She would have kept him up all night.
Senator David Norris: On the other hand, I am among those, as suggested by Senator Ó Murchú, who would pay tribute to FÁS on the basis of my personal experience. Now is the time, when it is under pressure, to stand up for the foot soldiers in FÁS. I have direct personal experience of them and I am not suggesting that anybody here, including my friend, Senator Ross, has impugned them in any sense. He was very scrupulous about not doing that. At the James Joyce centre, some years ago, for example, we had a series of FÁS and community employment schemes. That was during a period of intense unemployment, up to 80% in my area of the city. Some 27 young people from that area, thanks to FÁS, went on to full-time paid employment. At the moment we have a very distinguished Joycean scholar. I am not sure whether I am allowed to name him. Before the Cathaoirleach intervenes I shall just say that his name is Dr. James Quinn.
An Cathaoirleach: I would prefer not. I do not think the topic of Joycean scholars is relevant to the Order of Business.
Senator David Norris: He is a real scholar, a PhD, the translator of Fernando Pessoa, a world authority not just on Joyce but on Pessoa, who has made these links between Ireland and Portugal. Thank God we got him and we would not have done so without FÁS. It is absolutely appropriate that excessive lifestyles be examined.
I heard somebody say - there was a chorus of approval - that half of FÁS's budget, equivalent to €500 million, should be knocked off. That seems to be a swinging cut, particularly as we have abolished the Combat Poverty Agency and mutilated the Equality Authority. Everything that supports people in a recession is being attacked. For God's sake do not destroy the body that is supposed to look after people who are coming out of employment. Reform it and make it efficient, but do not put it out of business.