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

The context for these questions is obvious. It is, as we approach the end of the Government's first 100 days in office, the objectives and hopes the Government had to deal with the most important issue facing the country, the EU-IMF deal. Is it not time to acknowledge that the strategy pursued by the Government in terms of seeking to ease the burden of this brutal deal has failed spectacularly? The strategy of being the good boys and girls of Europe and of bowing subserviently to the EU and IMF in terms of imposing austerity and putting on the backs of Irish people the private gambling debts of speculators, developers and financiers has failed. All my questions ask whether it is not time to abandon this failed strategy and consider another strategy by recognising the very stark contrast between our failure to achieve any relief from the EU and IMF and the success of ordinary Greek people taking to the streets, protesting and resisting the austerity.

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