Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I will need at least a two minute warning.

The Government has sadly parroted the lie that this programme for Greece is a bailout or some kind of act of solidarity with or assistance to the Greek people. Nothing could be further from the truth. This programme for Greece is purely and simply a bailout for the banks and the bondholders in Greece and across Europe who turned the European economy into a gambling casino. They caused the crisis, but ordinary Greek people are being asked to pay the price with the most savage austerity. We need to be absolutely clear. This is not an act of solidarity. It is not a bailout. It is a crucifixion of the Greek people and a robbery of their state assets, state enterprises and natural resources.

The proof of these assertions is that the loans being given to Greece are not even being given to the Greek Government or state and they are most certainly not being given to the Greek people. They are being put into a special account which is not controlled by the elected representatives of the Greek people and has as its priority the repayment of the gambling debts of the bankers and the bondholders. That is what it is about. Who pays for that? The Greek people pay for it with the most destructive, barbaric austerity measures imaginable. The consequences have been absolutely devastating for the Greek people.

One in five Greek people is now unemployed. Fifty per cent of Greek youth are unemployed. There are 22,000 people homeless in Athens alone. An estimated one quarter of the population are dependent on soup kitchens and charity and voluntary organisations to eat. A huge proportion of the population is not even eating every day. Virtually every state asset, enterprise and natural resource is up for sale. Greece's assets are literally being stripped away.

Has this resulted in any improvement in the economic fortunes of Greece? No. It has led to a devastating collapse of the Greek economy. It contracted by 7% last year and it is estimated to contract again by 7% this year. That makes a complete mockery of all the targets of the so-called programme. The Government often suggests that we live in fantasy land on this side of the House. The Government and other EU leaders are living in fantasy land if they think that Greece will be able to reach the debt to GDP ratio of 120%, given the collapse of the Greek economy. Their entire programme is based on renewed growth in the Greek economy. They must be living in cloud-cuckoo-land if they think that the Greek economy can grow under the conditions being imposed on it.

All the evidence has shown that the Greek economy is collapsing and that the collapse will continue. Therefore, it will miss its targets and its debt-to-GDP ratio will almost certainly rise. Even a couple of percentage points off the mark on the growth projections would mean that their debt-to-GDP ratio could go as high as 160% or 170%. After all this suffering, asset stripping, the imposition of brutal austerity and suicide and poverty rates having gone through the roof, the end result is that the Greek economy will be in a far worse position than it was before this programme began. Of course, that should not surprise us because that was the consequence of the first so-called Greek bailout. They cut jobs, they cut pay and incomes, they cut social welfare and they privatised state assets, and the position got worse. That is why they were unable to meet the targets of the first programme, why they were forced into a second bailout and why the austerity demands put on Greece were ratcheted up to an even greater and more intense degree. That is the working out of this insane logic of austerity being imposed on the Greek people.

The only bright spark in the Greek picture is the tremendous resistance of the Greek people, who are making it extremely difficult for the troika and their Government to impose this austerity on them. Massive demonstrations, strikes and protests have physically prevented some of the austerity being imposed. The popularity of the parties in Greece which have imposed this - the Government should watch this space - has collapsed such that the political parties of the left of the sort which oppose this austerity agenda in this country are now up to 40%.

The response to the dramatic collapse in support for the pro-austerity parties in Greece and the dramatic rise in support for those who oppose the austerity of, for example, the German Finance Minister, Mr. Wolfgang Schäuble, is that perhaps we should call off the elections that are due in a few months, and that really sums it up. This austerity is rammed down people's throats, poverty, destitution and suicide increase and the country is asset stripped, and when the people revolt against it and threaten to put in power a different Government that will not go along with the austerity agenda, the EU masters state we should consider calling off the elections. That just about sums up the trajectory of the austerity that is being rammed down the throats of the people of Greece and, increasingly, of the people across Europe. It is a devastation of society and the economy and a subversion of democracy to ensure they can carry it all through.

The important point to make about what is happening in Greece is that it is not by any means an isolated phenomenon. It is living in fantasy land if the Government consoles itself with some notion that we are not Greece. All that is stopping Ireland being in the same appalling position as Greece is that approximately 150,000 people have left this country in the past two years. That is all that is saving the Government. Otherwise we would be at similar levels of unemployment and social destitution as Greece. However, when we are forced into a second bailout programme because we will still not be able to access borrowing on the international markets given the fact that we have taken on the bankers' gambling debts, the same intensification of austerity demands that has been imposed on Greece as part of the second so-called bailout will then come visiting these shores, and then even the escape channel of emigration will not save the Government.

All the people of this country need to learn from Greece, or for that matter, increasingly, from Portugal and Italy, and clearly the Government will not learn it, is how to protest, how to get out on the streets and resist this madness because this juggernaut is devastating our society. All the signs are there: 14% or 15% unemployment, rising suicide rates, rising child poverty, hospitals or services being closed, just like in Greece, and more austerity promised year on year until we go into the second bailout when it will be intensified.

We must stop this madness, and one opportunity for the public to do that will be on the 31st of this month when the Government plans to hand over another €3 billion to the toxic Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. I believe Fine Gael is also holding its conference on that day. There will be a massive demonstration in Dublin, from Parnell Square at 1p.m., and I hope we will see thousands, if not tens of thousands, taking Greece lessons in how to protest on that day.

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