Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Like the Taoiseach's Government, the British Government is imposing a savage programme of cuts on public spending. Did the Taoiseach get an opportunity to question the Deputy Prime Minister with regard to the effect of £4 billion or £5 billion of cuts in Northern Ireland and the effects these will have on hard-pressed communities and working class people, many on the margins, for whom public services are critical? Did the Taoiseach have an opportunity to raise this matter? Why is the Government, including the Taoiseach, terrified to ask the leaders of other EU states to honour the solidarity, which they maintain is a core value in the European Union, by cutting the interest rate they are charging on loans to this country? Incredibly, the Minister for Finance informed me yesterday that he did not ask the US Treasury Secretary, Mr. Geithner, about the €20 billion hit he insisted the Irish people take by making us pay the obligations of the gambling bondholders. Does the Taoiseach not accept that ordinary people in this country - taxpayers - will find it incredible that the Taoiseach has high level access to these leaders, yet he refuses to ask them to apply a humane interest rate rather than this incredible profiteering on the misery of the Irish people to the tune of €9 billion - we learned the figure yesterday - through interest rates that are considerably over the odds?

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