Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

With the permission of the House, I will share time with Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Clare Daly.

A great opportunity has been missed by the Government. Let us conjure up the scene in the ECB many weeks ago and imagine what they were looking at in the Irish political scene. They saw a Government going out of power, having negotiated a deal about which the ECB must have been somewhat triumphant, and examined those who were about to take that Government's place with some trepidation. There was the red-haired fiery man from Dún Laoghaire, who said it would be Frankfurt's way or his way. There was a man from Limerick, who was more taciturn but who growled the kind of tough line that never came to pass. The ECB must have anticipated the emergence and arrival of a new Government with some worries. They cannot believe their luck at what has happened. The present Minister for Finance and Tánaiste have turned out, in European terms, to be paper tigers.

The happiest man in this House today is not the Minister for Finance, the spokesperson for Sinn Féin or myself. It is Deputy Michael McGrath. The Government has made Fianna Fáil's task so easy by its attitude to this deal. This afternoon, Deputy McGrath was exulting in once again congratulating the Government on taking the ECB line, which Fianna Fáil took a very few weeks ago. Fianna Fáil cannot believe that the opportunity Deputies Gilmore and Noonan and the Taoiseach saw eight weeks ago of going to Frankfurt and saying "We will not take this deal" has been thrown out the window.

Fine Gael and the Labour Party were right to say they would burn the bondholders and that it would be Frankfurt's way or Labour's way. They were an unknown quantity when they said that. However, when they came to the table their attitude, particularly to burning the bondholders, restructuring or whatever one wants to call it, was weaker than that of the former Minister whom Deputy McGrath is representing here today. Deputy Lenihan made it clear that he put the issue of restructuring, defaulting or burning bondholders to the ECB that Saturday night and that the ECB said, no. The Irish delegation capitulated on the spot. The nation was subjugated to the ECB on that day.

The great opportunity was there for the Minister for Finance and Irish officials to go back to the table and say, "The deal stays on the table or we walk". What would have happened? It is all very well to say there is no alternative. There is an alternative. Deputy Pearse Doherty is right. Those who are pulling the strings are the ECB and the Department of Finance. There is an alternative. What would have happened if the Minister had said: "We are going back to Ireland, we are holding a referendum and we are coming back with the result of that referendum and we are defaulting on structured renegotiated terms on that basis."

What would have happened? Iceland's default is not an exact parallel but this is an important point. On the issue of defaulting against British and Dutch banks, Iceland had a referendum.

I believe the Minister also knows we are going to have to restructure our debt. This programme is a huge act of political fraud. It is an act of betrayal and should not be happening The Icelandic authorities got much better terms offered because their threat of non-payment was realistic and it was believed. We could have tried the same. We could have said we were not going back to the Irish people and telling them that we are paying this debt, as the Minister said before the election.

It is pitiful for the Minister to come before this House and say we have renegotiated the minimum wage. As Deputy Doherty and Deputy Michael McGrath stated, that is revenue neutral. There is no concession in that. Someone somewhere will have to pay for it and someone somewhere next week will have to pay for what has now been downgraded to the jobs initiative because it is not a jobs budget.

I agree with what Deputy Doherty said earlier. I do not believe there will be much in what we get next week. Let us wait and see, but there is no concession from the IMF and the EU in the jobs initiative. There is an agreement that we can fiddle around with the figures all we like provided we keep paying the same amount of interest, a reduction in the rate of which has not yet been conceded. That was sold to us during the election as a given and something which would automatically happen with a change of Government but it is now already receding before our eyes.

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