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

I would like to see an ECB that is under democratic control as opposed to the illusion of independence, which in reality means that it acts in the interests of the big banks.

Mr. Draghi said that the ECB is not into dictating policy. He should read the letter he wrote to the Italian Government at the end of 2011 or the letter his predecessor wrote to the Minister for Finance here which was published a few years ago. That letter was from Mr. Trichet, the then head of the European Central Bank, and it was very clear about threatening the withdrawal of emergency liquidity assistance and one day after, the Governor of the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland, who sits on the governing council, went on the radio without informing the Government to announce that a bailout would be needed. That was clearly to designed to push Ireland into a bailout and into saving the European banking system, for which people have paid the price.

I refer to the present because this continues to happen. I mention the situation the Italian Government is in today. It is a government that I have nothing in common with in terms of politics and a government whose racist politics I abhor, but it is a government which is elected and has a right to set a budget. What is currently happening is that it has set a budget and the European Commission is saying that it does not accept that budget. The ECB has added pressure onto the Italian Government against the budget in his comments that have been reported in the press today.