Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I am not surprised that Professor Honohan will not entertain the radical alternatives we have outlined. His whole thinking is confined within the rules and laws of European capitalism. In its current workings, capitalism is an utter disaster. Trillions of uninvested profits are sitting in banks around Europe, which the multinationals and the big European companies refuse to invest because they do not think they will get enough profit back. Is it any wonder that we have 25 million people unemployed in the EU? If one confines oneself to that, then we do face an ongoing catastrophe for our people.

The European Central Bank was among the most implacable agents or arms of the establishment, insisting that the Irish people should carry the bondholders' private debts, and that there should not be any getting away from that. Professor Honohan is in Frankfurt every month, so he is talking to his colleagues in the ECB. Does he think that by March this year there will be a long-term agreement in regard to the promissory note, rather than the type of trickery we saw last March?