David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As a member of three trade unions who voted against the acceptance of the breach of an agreement by the Government unilaterally, I celebrate the fact that SIPTU and the other trade unions voted against it massively and overwhelmingly.

It was an exercise in democracy of the kind I would like to see more often around this joint. It is unlike the situation in which the people came here from the troika and lied to us to say we could not and must not, legally and morally, burn the bondholders. Within a short matter of time, they went to Cyprus to tell people they must burn the bondholders. There is no consistency or feeling for ordinary decent human beings. Thank God for our President, Michael D. Higgins, who told it as it was today in the European Parliament, spelling matters out in a most wonderful speech. The people of Ireland are the victims of an international swindle and the financial houses, ratings agencies and banks who organised it are now sitting up there dictating what we will do. They are unelected and it is undemocratic and time we told them to "F" off.