The billions in funding being used to bail out the banks should instead be used to create jobs and to develop infrastructure, the Socialist Party said today.
The party, which is running nine candidates in the general election under the United Left Alliance umbrella, published a manifesto that it described as an “aid for discussion”.
Among its policies, it advocated tax on the "super-wealthy", an increase in corporation tax and a cap of €100,000 on public sector salaries.
On the IMF-EU bailout, the party said the idea that Ireland would not be able to get credit and would financially collapse if the bondholders weren't paid was “wrong”.
"Working class people in other countries have defied the IMF and forced them to retreat," the manifesto said. "People across the world would support such a stand."
The Socialist Party said the debts to the IMF-EU would “choke the economy”, taking €10 billion – or 20 per cent of tax revenue in 2014.
Socialist Party MEP and former TD Joe Higgins said the IMF-EU came to the country with the programme of "savage austerity", which was not in the interests of the Irish people or the Irish economy.
Rather it was about rescuing major European banks from billions in "bad gambling, speculative debts" they incurred as a result of "recklessly going into the Irish property market with Irish bankers and developers".
"The Irish people, working people, pensioners, or poor people have no responsibility for that. It should not happen. It is immoral and unjust. When I have confronted the president of the European Commission Mr [Jose Manuel] Barroso with that contention he had no answer. Neither do any of the parties."
Cllr Mick Barry said Fine Gael and Labour’s pledge to renegotiate the bailout deal was an attempt to pretend they could "turn a rotten deal into a good one".
"I think the hollowness of this claim has been shown dramatically by the intervention of Mr [Alan] Dukes in the campaign, talking about an extra €15 billion, possibly to bailout the banks. Which shows the insanity of a policy of bailing out banks, paying for the bad gambling debts of the bondholders."
On jobs, Mr Barry said there was no issue more important for the Socialist Party in this campaign.
"The three major parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party – in our view have no credibility on this issue. Fianna Fáil preside over a dole queue with 440,000 people on it."
Mr Barry said Fine Gael and Labour's respective plans to cut 30,000 and 18,000 public service jobs would represent the “largest jobs cull” in the history of the State. He called instead for State investment in infrastructure to get people such as carpenters, plasterers and bricklayers back to work.
Dublin North candidate Clare Daly cited recent figures from Social Justice Ireland which suggested the top 5 per cent of earners in Ireland wealth of about €120 billion, with the top 10 per cent of people sharing 25 per cent of total income.
Cian Prendiville (21), believed to be the youngest candidate running in the election, said two out of three young men in his constituency of Limerick City were unemployed. Young people were among the hardest hit by the current crisis and the increase in college fees had made third-level inaccessible for a lot of working class people.
"Even if young people do manage to get through university they are facing a life of ling term unemployment. Thousands of nursing, teaching and other graduates are having the option of public sector jobs cut off by this government and they are basically being pointed in the direction of the dole queues."
Mr Prendiville claimed the Government's "de facto policy and that of the opposition is to tell young people to emigrate".
The candidates for the party are Joe Higgins (Dublin West); Clare Daly (Dublin North; Conor MacLiam (Carlow Kilkenny); Mick Barry (Cork North Central); Brian Greene (Dublin North East); Mick Murphy (Dublin South West); Rob Connolly (Dublin Mid West) and Cian Prendiville (Limerick City).