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

To come back to Dr. Donovan's caveats in regard to projections, etc., this country will leave the troika programme at the end of this year. It must do so because the troika above all and the whole political establishment of Europe needs it to leave for political reasons and to validate their austerity agenda and to say Ireland was the poster boy and it is leaving. Will Dr. Donovan look at next year and the year after? On the basis of a weakening economic situation within the eurozone and the European Union and the stalled growth in this State, can he see a situation where, in the next year or two years, the sharks in the financial markets might suddenly look at the real figures for the Irish economy, say they do not have too much confidence in giving it rakes of money at cheap interests and that the interest rates could be ratcheted up and the country could be forced to go back into another programme?