THE GOVERNMENT should seek a mandate for the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) and other proposals by calling a general election, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has said.
He told reporters at Leinster House yesterday his message to the Government was: “Go to the people and seek the people’s mandate to do what you want to do. If the people vote for you, fair enough.”
The Government thought the people were “asleep”, said the Sinn Féin leader, adding that the Nama proposals were about “rewarding their friends”.
“The proposals that they are bringing forward arising from An Bord Snip and from the Commission on Taxation, and the proposition that we’re going to face up to of voting again on exactly the same Treaty of Lisbon: it’s my strong view that if the Government really believes in these proposals, then it should go and seek the support of the electorate for them.”
Mr Adams said: “The proposals are so devastating, in terms of the social guarantees, the social structure of the State; they are going to affect people, not just of our generation, but for the next generation; they are so deep-rooted and so cutting into the very fabric of what should be people’s rights, and any government that wants to bring about those type of changes should go and seek a mandate for it.”
Asked about his party’s support for the bank guarantee scheme last year, Mr Adams said: “We did so conditionally, and part of our problem was we didn’t get that out to the wider populace because we understand that the banks are a very integral part of the economy – but we want banks which serve the people as opposed to banks which serve the fat cats.”
Setting out Sinn Féin’s approach to the next general election, he said: “What we want is change; we’re not interested in managing the economy.
“If one could predict an outcome of an election, it looks like Labour are going to put Fine Gael into government – I don’t want to be presumptuous about any of this because the people haven’t cast a vote yet.
“That’s not going to sort anything out. That’s going to be simply Tweedledum and Tweedledee politics.
“What we want is a fundamental change in the core values of our political system, which has not served the people well, and is not serving the people well at this time.”
Sinn Féin TD for Louth, Arthur Morgan, said: “The Government should take charge of the situation by nationalising the two major banks and by delivering for the people of this country, not robbing the taxpayers to bail out the bankers and corrupt greedy speculators.”