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

Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts at the European Council meeting that the IMF deal and the demands of the ECB, in its determination that ordinary working people and the vulnerable in our society should pay the gambling debts of bankers, speculators and the super-wealthy, is grossly unfair and is worsening the economic crisis and not improving it? Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts their demands mean that parents of children with special needs do not know whether their vulnerable children will have a decent education next autumn and that they are terrified about their children's future and education because of cuts that are being imposed and demanded by the European Union and the IMF? Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts that low-paid workers, who already have been savaged with the universal social charge, are now terrified and that as a result of the EU-IMF demands to dismantle the remaining protections on their pay and conditions, many of them now fear they will be unable to pay their bills or rent or to survive in the coming months? Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts that cutting the incomes of low-paid workers and middle income families is crushing demand in our economy? Will he state that despite what he suggested in his speech, this measure is not helping economic recovery but will mean more job losses and further economic depression?

Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts that their programme is resulting in health cuts that mean that eight accident and emergency units are to be severely cut back and effectively closed and that as a result, people will die while rushing to hospitals that are too distant and which already are overrun with people on trolleys? Will the Taoiseach tell our European Union counterparts that more people will die waiting for vital operations because of the cuts they are imposing on our health service? Will the Taoiseach tell them that as a result of the cuts they are demanding, tens of thousands of families who have been waiting for years on council housing lists have just been told on foot of a Government proposal that they will never get a council house? The Government has instructed that local authorities should now lease properties from developers and NAMA in order that they can pay back the bankers and speculators in Europe. Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts that it is grossly unjust to steal our State assets to pay off the gambling debts of bankers and spectators?

In other words, will the Taoiseach tell them it simply is not working and it is unfair that working people and the vulnerable should pay for the actions of gamblers and spectators? Will he tell them the people of Ireland cannot understand the reason they are being asked to pay for the greed of the super-wealthy? Will the Taoiseach tell them that most economic commentators, the markets and ordinary citizens simply do not understand the reason both they and the Taoiseach fail to understand an elementary fact of economics that even a child could understand? If one takes money out of the pockets of ordinary people who spend it in shops, businesses and the economy and if one then puts that money into the vaults of French, German and British banks, it will make the economy worse, not better.

Will the Taoiseach therefore tell them the Greek people are right to protest? They are right to resist attempts to force them to sell beaches and islands or to close their hospitals. They are right to resist attempts to privatise their public transport system, their health system and so on to pay off bankers and speculators. Will the Taoiseach tell them that ordinary people, such as those parents of children with special needs who were protesting yesterday in defence of those children were right to protest? Moreover, people will come out on the streets in July in what I hope will be a sea of protest on the arrival here of the IMF and EU to tell the Taoiseach what budget he should write and what further pain he should inflict on ordinary people in Ireland. Will the Taoiseach tell our European counterparts that those people are right to protest?

Finally, on a separate matter, the Taoiseach should ask our European counterparts to make a public statement appealing to Israel to allow safe passage for Irish citizens and other citizens, who are trying to bring help and solidarity to the besieged people of Gaza who are being crushed by the ruthless oppression that is being visited upon them by the Israeli State.

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