Jobs creation the route out of crisis – Ellis

October 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sinn Fein TD for Dublin North West Dessie Ellis has called on the government to listen to his party’s proposals for job creation today. He made his comments following the launch of the ‘Jobs Plan – Enterprise Policy for the 21st century’, saying job creation was an essential ingredient in building economic prosperity.

The document is a detailed 60 page job stimulus package which sets out a comprehensive plan for making youth employment a national priority; assisting businesses and manufacturing; developing the agri-food sector; reforming the existing enterprise agencies; promoting co-operatives and much more.

Deputy Ellis continued;

“Jobs are at the route of this crisis. With close to half a million people on the Live Register and no signs of this changing we need a new approach by the state and real stimulus in our homes, communities, public services and businesses

Ballymun and Finglas are once again employment blackspots with highs of 44% and 35.7% . Live Register numbers have gone up or remained high over the last year. We need to break this cycle and use job creation to do it.

Like our alternative budget proposals, which we will bring forward next month, this plan has been fully costed and provides a socially responsible way to reduce the deficit and create and retain jobs.

In this Jobs Plan, Sinn Féin presents a real, detailed jobs stimulus strategy that will invest €13 billion into job creation and retention, and create an average of 156,000 short and long term jobs.

It has been a mantra of Sinn Féin that you cannot cut your way out of recession.

The money is there; in the National Pension Reserve Fund, the European Investment Bank, the private pension sector, and in the money the government plans to cut from its capital budget spend.

This is not rocket science.

The scandal is that this government will continue to fritter away the money in the NPRF; put money into toxic banks, and pay off unguaranteed bondholders, while older citizens lose home care supports, and there is one reduction after another in wages; support for lone parents; carers; citizens with disabilities; the blind and the unemployed.

Fine Gael and Labour have no strategic vision of how to invest the money in the National

Pension Reserve Fund in a way that can help the economy in the long term.
Sinn Féin has a strategy.

It is a thoughtful, rational, well developed and costed plan that will use the available resources in an intelligent – smart way.

There will be those who disagree with our proposals. That’s fine. Let them do so constructively and provide their alternative.”

Filed Under: Ballymun, Finance, Finglas

Bank of Ireland Rate Increase heaps more pain on families – Ellis

September 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sinn Fein TD Dessie Ellis responding to news that Bank of Ireland has hiked its interest rate by half a percentage point said the move is guaranteed to push some mortgage owners over the edge, potentially taking people who are just meeting their mortgages into the volatile mortgage distress category.

Ellis said this is another example of banks using families as an easy target.
Deputy Ellis said:
“Early this morning, people began to receive letters from Bank of Ireland, with no prior warning, telling them their rate had increased by half a percentage point. On average the increase will add an extra €27 a month to a mortgage of €100,000 over 25 years.

“People are struggling out there. They are struggling because politicians, banks and property speculators sold this state down the river and left ordinary people to pick up the tab. We have thousands of people in mortgage distress and this size of increase is the thing that will push some people over the edge, from those who are just about meeting their mortgage to those who are in mortgage distress. If the banks want to push people to the point where they can’t pay any of their mortgage, they are going the right way about it.

“This Government has sat on its hands throughout this mortgage crisis, as the Moody’s report last week pointed out. Their reactions have been ineffectual and disproportionate to the size of the crisis.

“When the banks were in crisis, this Government and Fianna Fáil found the €64 billion needed to bail them out. When citizens are in crisis, the Government holds up its hands and says it can do nothing.

“It puts the demands of international bank bondholders over the needs and rights of ordinary Irish citizens. It’s inability to make banks understand their debt to the Irish people is the Government’s biggest failure to date.

“The ECB is lending at .75% and yet Bank of Ireland told customers today that the cost of lending had gone up. We need the Government to intervene with the banks on interest hikes.”

Filed Under: Economy, Finance, General News