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

Are we failing to look reality in the face in respect of the unsustainability of the debt burden imposed as a result of this package? It is not only I who say this - this is a view widely held, including by people such as the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, lead writers for the Financial Times and economists in this country such as David McWilliams and Constantin Gurdgiev, who all say the burden is unsustainable. It is shocking that some 18% of tax revenue in 2014 will go to service only the interest repayments on this debt, never mind the capital debt. Many people say we are sinking into a morass of debt which will cripple this economy as well as cause untold suffering for working people and the poor and vulnerable in our society. Again, it is not only I or all those economists and international commentators who say that. I remind the Minister of his own words in February: "It is neither morally right nor economically sustainable for taxpayers to be asked to beggar themselves to make massive profits for speculators". That was said at the launch of the Fine Gael Party banking policy when the Minister stated he believed the new Government, of which he is now a member, would be forced to restructure unilaterally the debt of Irish banks if agreement cannot be reached with Europe regarding senior bondholders sharing the cost of recapitalising the country's insolvent banks.

The Minister was absolutely right. I could not have put it better myself. At that time, he was in line with what everybody in the country felt and what all serious commentators were saying. What has changed? Why has the debt now become sustainable when at that time the Minister said it was not so?

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