Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

On my 16th birthday 20 years ago, I spoke in Strasbourg at the European Parliament as part of an Irish delegation. I was so nervous that approximately one hour later, my legs collapsed and I found myself staring at the ceiling of a French supermarket. At that time, I was proud to be both an Irish and a European citizen and I am glad to state I still am. At the time, I had great hope for the European project and I still do. There have been 65 years or more of relative peace in Europe and in western Europe in particular. There has been a fantastic advancement of human rights across Europe and, in many cases, into Ireland from Europe. Moreover, there have been great advances in trade and co-operation between the European nations. Consequently, I am proud to be European and I believe the European project to be extraordinarily important.

Unfortunately, two recent events have drastically undermined the European project. The first of these is the reprehensible response of Europe to Ireland's banking situation, as has been referenced repeatedly. The decision to force Irish citizens to pay the debts of private sector investors is economic lunacy and much more importantly, is entirely and grossly immoral. Deputy Boyd Barrett is entirely right; there is a strong link between Ireland being forced to pay private sector debts and the fact that Irish people will die. There will be fewer operations and longer transit times to accident and emergency units and as a result, Irish people will die. This is neither theory nor highfalutin macroeconomics but is what is going to happen. This is what our so-called partners in Europe are forcing us to do to protect their financial institutions and very wealthy friends. This is outrageous and Deputy Ross is correct to state the Taoiseach probably will be lauded for ticking all the boxes of the IMF deal. As the Argentinian economy and society collapsed under the weight of IMF austerity measures some years ago, that country was being held up as the poster child of the IMF because it was doing all the right things. Argentina only began to recover when it told international financial institutions and the IMF to get stuffed and finally took hold of its own destiny.

The second issue pertains to the corporation tax rare. An extraordinary situation arose whereby President Sarkozy flew into Dublin and in the French Embassy there, gave his word that were the Irish people to vote again on the Lisbon treaty and to pass it, under no circumstances would Ireland's corporation tax rate ever be put onto the table. Not only is it on the table but essentially it is being stated the others will continue to profiteer grossly from Ireland's actions in bailing out their banks, unless Ireland puts its corporation tax rate up for sale. I suggest President Sarkozy explicitly lied to the Irish people and is acting in a deeply dishonourable manner. This should make Members extremely nervous about what appears to be the Government's current plan, which is to survive until 2013 and if more money is then needed, which appears to be extremely likely, to hope our European partners will help us out and there will be some multilateral burden-sharing. However, those to whom we are entrusting that plan have lied to us and are using our current weakness, as a result of helping their economy, to behave in a deeply dishonourable manner.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in advance of this meeting and in this context I have two messages for the Taoiseach and the Government. First, Ireland is in the middle of a hostile negotiation and this is not a friendly or a multilateral matter. While I appreciate there are many complex elements to it in respect of international relations and coalition building, this is a hostile negotiation. The ECB and Jean-Claude Trichet are holding a gun to Ireland's head and have explicitly stated that were Ireland to refuse to pay back their friends in the private sector, they would pull the money from Ireland's banks and would destroy its economy.

These are the people we are meant to trust and to work with. I strongly welcome the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Noonan, that the Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide bondholders will be burned. I urge the Government to extend the same principle to the other banks. The Minister's logic that it is now possible because Anglo Irish Bank is no longer a bank is fine, but the moral argument applies to every senior bondholder of every single bank. It is the moral argument that needs to win out in the end.

The second opportunity I suggest to the Government is the opportunity to change the conversation in Europe. From all my interaction with European economists, journalists and citizens, I note they are all saying the same thing, which is that they in Europe are bailing out Ireland, that Ireland has acted irresponsibly, that Europe is helping us but we are acting like spoiled children. The message that needs to get through to them is that Europe is not bailing us out, rather we are bailing out Europe. The Irish people are being forced to pay €100 billion of debts that are not and were never theirs in order to bail out Europe's irresponsible banks. Every single European person to whom I have spoken and to whom I have explained the situation has agreed that I am right. I have now begun to hear our own media challenging the foreign powers. I urge the Government to bring this message to Europe and to say that we are bailing out Europe and, as such, Europe must engage in burden sharing. The debt is €100 billion and if this can be split into the Irish people paying €25 billion, the bondholders paying €25 billion and our European partners paying €50 billion, our national debt will come down significantly, we will be back in the markets tomorrow and we will be back in control of our own destiny.

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