Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The difficulty with the Minister's argument is that all the evidence to date suggests this bailout arrangement is not the route back to economic sovereignty. If we take the three months since the Troika was last here and examine what has happened since, the domestic economy is still in crisis, unemployment has increased and Irish debt has been relegated to junk status. If the game plan was for the bailout to get us fit to return to the debt markets and regain our sovereignty it is failing. All the while this failure persists, people suffer swingeing cutbacks and austerity and hardship as the Minister has acknowledged.

Here is a figure for the Minister to consider in his calculations, because he has mentioned a large amount of money. The 3% surcharge on EU moneys to the State alone will cost us approximately €9 billion. Talk about friends profiting on the hardship of their alleged friends. I know I will not convince the Minister or the Government as to the folly of their direction but at the very least they must recognise when the indicators for progress and success they establish clearly and manifestly fail.

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