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

In some ways, I share the Minister's concern about the seriousness of the situation we are facing. I do not want to overdramatise it, but I cannot understand why the Minister and the Government are stabbing the Greek people in the back. In the process we are stabbing in the back all of the victims of failed austerity policies, including in this country, by refusing their initial proposal, which is very clear, that there be a debt conference along the lines of the post-war debt conference, from which Germany benefited, with a 50% write-down of debt and an extension of the rest of the debt for such a period that it effectively wrote it off. This allowed for the reconstruction of Germany and, essentially, the rebuilding of Europe. It was a very good proposal and I do not understand why the Minister did not support it.

Does the Minister accept that the election result in Greece stems from the fact that the policies pursued by the troika have been a disastrous failure in Greece? Is it not absolutely obvious that the policies have been a disastrous failure? We have seen the verdict of the Greek people against the background of a humanitarian crisis caused directly by austerity. It did not produce the growth the troika stated it would, led to a collapse of the economy and produced a humanitarian crisis, which is appalling. It turfed thousands of workers out of their jobs and slashed incomes, leaving 40% of young people in poverty and 26% unemployed. The Greek people have rightly said this policy is not working and that we need a radically different approach, saying the debt is unsustainable and needs to be written down and that we need an end to austerity policies. Does the Minister agree that they are right to say austerity has not worked? We should support them in saying, after six years, that it is clear it has not worked, that we need a different approach and that the proposal was a fair and reasonable one in order to start looking in different directions?