Address to the Labour Party Conference

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My speech to the 2009 Labour Party Conference in Mullingar on Banking and Finance. This was carried live on RTE ONE on Saturday.

Cllr Keith Martin, Labour's candidate for Mayo County Council was a keynote speaker at the 2009 Labour Party Conference which was held recently in Mullingar.  Speaking on a motion for banking and finance reform Cllr Martin spoke of people's fear of job losses, reposessions and emmigration and criticised the government for failing to provide hope and a plan for recovery.

Cllr Martin contrasted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and message of hope with Brian Cowen's Bord Snip and warnings of worse to come for future generations.  According to Cllr Martin FDR told the American people they had nothing to fear but fear itself while Brian Cowen told the Irish people to be afraid.

Cllr Martin warned that what he called the government's rehashing of the failed slash and burn policies of the 1980s would only lead to a return of the failed economy of the 1980s and said that small businesses in Westport needed access to credit and a return of consumer confidence.  

Concluding his speech Cllr Martin called for a strategy for recovery and a return of hope saying it was "time to end the fear."

Watch the speech here
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1309191

Delegates

 As we meet here today there is a great deal of fear across our country, a great uncertainty as to the economic course our nation is taking.

 In my own constituency of Mayo in towns and villages like Westport and Louisburgh Murrisk and Aughagower people are afraid.

Afraid of losing their jobs

Afraid of losing their homes

Afraid of, once again, of losing their children to emigration

Upon his election in 1933, at the height of the great depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the American People that they had nothing to fear, but fear itself. 

In Ireland, in 2009, at the height of our recession Brian Cowen tells us to be afraid.

Instead of a plan for national recovery we are offered an bord snip

Delegates the government's rehashing of the failed slash and burn policies of the 1980s can only lead to a return of the failed economics of the 1980s.

Meanwhile small businesses in towns like Westport, counties like Mayo and across the country need access to credit and a return of consumer confidence.

Delegates this motion before you sets out specific policies to combat the current crisis and it is these kind of policies, which restore confidence and offer hope, which must lie at the heart of economic recovery.

Let this policy be the first step in a new deal for a new Ireland

Delegates, Friends, It is time to end the fear, 


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