Austerity Policies Could Destroy Us - Launch of Congress Pre-Budget Submission
3 Nov 2010
Congress General Secretary David Begg has warned that a continuation of the current austerity programme could "literally destroy the Irish economy and kill off any prospects of recovery for many, many years."
Speaking at the launch of the Congress pre-Budget Submission, Mr Begg said austerity had delivered nothing but higher unemployment and a bigger deficit.
"We have tried austerity and it just hasn't worked - it has just made matters worse. There have been three deflationary budgets that have taken €14.5 billion out of the economy and the result is clear: unemployment has almost trebled, the deficit is actually bigger than when we started and the cost of borrowing is at record levels.
"How could that be interpreted as anything other than failure?"
Mr Begg said the period of adjustment had to be extended to 2017. He described the target of reducing the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2014 as arbitrary and artificial. He said there was no impediment to extending the adjustment period, either at a national or an EU level.
He said that we needed to focus on jobs and growth and that the Congress submission contained a number of innovative proposals in that regard.
The Executive Summary of the Congress submission can be found here.