In a statement today, Richard Boyd Barret TD for People Before Profit-ULA, said the recently revealed links between the Department of Finance and the Clearing House Group and the presence of a former senior executive in US multi-national Sodexo as an advisor to Minister Reilly’s department, demonstrates that the government is “nothing more than a puppet for multi-nationals and corporate interests”.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD, who has challenged the Minister for Finance, on several occasions in the Dail, on their failure to support a financial transaction tax, said it was utterly outrageous that the government’s policy on this issue was being dictated by a group of bankers and speculators to the detriment of desperately needed tax reviews to fund vital public services which are currently being slashed.

Richard Boyd Barrett was also the first to raise the link, between Minister James Reilly’s moves to privatise home help services and the newly dominant presence of US multi-national Sodexo in the private home help sector at Leaders Questions last week said,

“It is absolutely scandalous that a senior executive working as recently as a year ago with Sodexo is now advising Minister Reilly on health policy”.

“These two examples demonstrate clearly that the sort of crony capitalism that brought the Irish economy to its knees is alive and well in the new Fine Gael- Labour government and the government are nothing more than the mouth-pieces for profit-hungry corporate interests”

“These revelations also indicate that the scandal around primary care centres and the relationship between Minister Reilly and private commercial interests are not a flash in the pan or an isolated incident and demonstrates the inherent connection between privatisation and crony capitalism”

“The outsourcing of public services and deference to private commercial interests inevitably creates the conditions for political corruption and cronyism”.

“The victims of all this are the elderly, the disabled, home care workers themselves, parents relying on child benefit, parents of children in need of respite care and many more. Instead of the government championing their interests these vulnerable sectors of our society are simply seen as an opportunity to make profits”

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