Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

In the programme for Government there is a commitment to a major undertaking to secure burden sharing on an equitable basis, meaning speculating banks should take losses incurred in property gambling, rather than inflicting them on taxpayers. There is a further promise to secure a reduction in the penal and opportunistic interest rates charged by the European Union as part of the programme to save banks from their gambling losses on the backs of the Irish people. In four months not one iota has been achieved in these major objectives which are also fundamental to the national finances. What are the Taoiseach's revised aims?

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