Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We have nothing to celebrate. An insane policy of promoting a banking and property bubble led to the more insane decision to bail out the same banks and property developers. Odious debt was imposed on the Irish people and it has not gone away, nor will it on December 15, nor will the consequences of that insanity. Next year, the State will pay €8 billion in interest payments, a sum equal to the amount we will borrow in 2014 and to the education budget and 50% of health spending. The figure will rise over the next years and there is no possibility of having any part of this debt reduced. The policy of being the poster child for austerity, doing what we are told to do and hoping for a handout has been a disastrous failure.

The policy of the Government and previous Governments has meant the imposition of a brutal, cold-hearted assault on the living standards of those who can least afford it. A report issued today on the effects of poverty on children shows the stark figure that one in five children goes to bed or to school hungry because there is not enough food in the home. The survey on income and living conditions released in February shows an increase to 16% of the population earning below €11,000 a year and at risk of poverty. This amounts to 733,000 individuals, one in seven of whom has a job. Consistent poverty has increased from 4% in 2008 to 7% in 2011 and is no doubt higher now. This is a doubling of people in need real. Deprivation now affects one in four people, people who are unable to heat their homes, unable to buy a present, have a warm coat or buy meat. The effect of austerity means over 100,000 families are waiting on lists for social housing, which does not exist. Another 100,000 families are in mortgage arrears, with the prospect of mass evictions looming. More than 100,000 young people have been forced to emigrate and mass unemployment is at a real figure of 23%, when we include the number of those underemployed.

There is nothing to celebrate. It is a political decision and the aim is to give the impression the bogeyman - the troika - is gone and that we can now return to the warm embrace of the kind gentle good samaritans of international bond markets. Are we to celebrate the fact that we can borrow the money from a group of loan sharks to pay the interest on the money we previously borrowed from another group of loan sharks?

The question of whether we borrow from the troika or the bond markets is Hobson's choice. We should never have been in the situation. The way out is to repudiate the odious part of the debt, which is a debt accruing from the bank bailout. This happens every day of the week in banking situations. We saw an example with Independent News & Media recently, where a whole chunk of money was wiped off the debt of Denis O'Brien's company. It can be done and we should seek to do so, lifting the huge weight off the Irish people's shoulders.

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