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

Is it not the oldest negotiating trick in the world to start negotiations by demanding the absolutely unmanageable and then falling back with a few concessions and trying to present them as palatable? No doubt, that is a negotiating trick that the former union officials such as the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Tánaiste taught the Taoiseach from their days in the trade union movement. Is it not the reality that nurses, firefighters and other front-line public sector workers will lose up to 8% of their pay? How are they expected to sustain that?

Will the Taoiseach tell the truth about why these cuts are being imposed? When he says we have to borrow €12 billion this year, will he inform the public that €9 billion of that is in interest repayments on debts that are not ours? These cuts are being imposed on public sector workers and the economy to pay back the gambling debts of bankers and bondholders. What does the Taoiseach have to say to the question I put to him about the damaging effect this will have on the rest of the economy? How can he possibly say that this will help recovery when it will take €1 billion out of the pockets of workers who spend that money in the economy? How can that do anything else but inflict a further devastating blow on our economy as a whole?

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