Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I pay tribute to all of them, and Ms Fiona Fitzpatrick, for the work they have done against the powerful forces they are up against. It is a community and a campaign fighting for debt justice for people in this country. I agree with the call for a cross-party committee but I also warn that I do not think they will be able to wind up their campaign. It will be necessary to keep pushing because if they were not pushing from the outside then the pressure will not be there. Even if a cross-party committee is set up, and I support that, I encourage the witnesses to keep going with their campaign because they have got to this point but it will take more to do it.

The work Ballyhea Says Know has done is valuable in two broad respects educationally. One is the myth busting that this was a bailout for Ireland. I agree it was not - it was a bailout for the European banking system, paid for by ordinary people through years of austerity and the misery that caused. Less than 1% of Europe's population took on more than 40% of Europe's banking debt. The second point, and the one I want to home in on, is the other even more dangerous myth. That is the idea that we are where we are - this is all very unfortunate, it is something that happened in the past, we were pressured into, maybe we should not have done it back then but we are where we are, it is done and there is nothing that can be done about it. I want to focus on that. Will Mr. O'Flynn explain what is happening now regarding the destruction of money by the Central Bank? There has been €10.5 billion destroyed since 2014 and there is another €14.5 billion to go. Will Mr. O'Flynn explain how that works, why it does not make sense, from the point of view of people in this country, and what the alternative is?