A Yes Vote Will Help Keep Kildare on the Road to Recovery

Fine Gael Kildare North TD, Anthony Lawlor, has today (Friday) said that a Yes vote in the Stability Treaty Referendum will help keep Kildare on the road to recovery, by bringing about the certainty needed for jobs growth.

“A Yes vote in the Stability Treaty Referendum will help bring about the right conditions to protect existing jobs and aid in creating the new jobs we need. International job creating investors thinking about coming here crave certainty; they want to know that Ireland is moving forward on the road to recovery.

“We’ve seen the benefit of Foreign Direct Investment in recent months in Kildare, with the creation of up to 200 jobs by HP in Leixlip. As a commuter county, Kildare also stands to benefit from the impressive list of jobs announcements in the Capital from companies including Mylan, Amgen, Mastercard and Sky. Announcements from these companies alone have led to the creation of more than 2,000 jobs in the last few months. If we want to continue to attract this kind of inward investment, we need to send out a message of stability and certainty by voting Yes on May 31st.

“There are a number of positive reasons to vote in favour of the Stability Treaty. Firstly, it will give Irish and global companies the confidence they need to invest here and create jobs. The Treaty will also ensure governments stick to sensible budget rules, to avoid the reckless mistakes of the past from being made again.

“And crucially, voting Yes to the Stability Treaty ensures we will have access to the ESM, Europe’s new bailout fund, should we ever need it. Despite what Sinn Féin and others may claim, this is set out in black and white in the Treaty document; if we reject the Treaty, we will be cut off from these funds.

“We need to borrow about €19 billion to run the country in 2014, after our current funding runs out. Those opposing the Treaty cannot explain where we would get this money from if we block ourselves off from the ESM.

“It’s also important to make clear what the Treaty does not do. It has absolutely no impact on our corporation tax rate; in fact the word tax does not feature at all in the Treaty document. It does not threaten our sovereignty; decisions about Ireland and our finances will continue to be made by our government.

“The Stability Treaty won’t solve all of our problems overnight. We still have a lot of work to do, and the Treaty will help us get there.”