Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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In practice, what does the resolution of credit institutions and certain investment firms in the framework of a single resolution mechanism, a single bank resolution fund, etc., mean for the ordinary citizen of the EU and the affairs of financial institutions that become bankrupt or broken? How would this process make a difference for the 13,000 mortgage holders whom the Minister and IBRC's liquidator intend to package off to vulture capitalists from the US and elsewhere, leaving them at the tender mercies of the financial markets?

Regarding the European semester, the six-pack, the two-pack and the considerable surveillance operation established by the EU in an open way to monitor deficits, borrowings and so on, having forced the Irish people through the agency of two Governments to take on a massive debt that wrecked our domestic economy and caused significant deficits, the EU is quite intent on sitting on top of that situation to ensure that the deficits are driven further down with a squeezing effect on the economy. How does this relate to the 25 million or 26 million people unemployed in the EU, including the crisis of youth unemployment in Ireland, Spain and so on? Can the Minister resolve this contradiction?