Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

Will the Taoiseach go to the EU tomorrow with a clear statement that this madness must end? Since 2008 there have been €20 billion in cuts. These have come in charges, levies, taxes and increased interest rates on mortgage debt all across the line, and taxes on low and moderate incomes. This policy has enormously deepened the recession. Demand has been cut by 25%, and yet still we have an €18 billion budget deficit. We are not one step further on. Austerity has not worked and it will not work, and that message must go to the leaders of the European Union.

As the Taoiseach will be aware, this country needs growth and jobs. It needs to reduce welfare costs and increase the tax base. Another €4 billion of austerity next year would be a disaster. It would be a slow economic strangulation of the economy, and we cannot tolerate it. The words, "Can't pay, won't pay," are on everybody's lips. The Irish people cannot take anymore. On top of this, the burden of the bank bailout is not sustainable. Apart from being immoral and unjust, the idea that a solution will come - on which I agree with the Taoiseach - with the problems surrounding the EU on Thursday is wishful thinking.

The EU project has run up against a simple fact. It is still a Europe based on nation states with national interests. French banks are most exposed to the Greek write down and state that they are in opposition to debt sharing between the banks and bondholders. On the other hand, the German taxpayers will not swallow bailing out peripheral countries. At the same time, we are told that we must be good boys and girls and take the cuts.

We need a new approach. We need to reject the rotten IMF-ECB deal that has wrecked the economy and the health, education and social services and that is destroying lives and livelihood, and we must default. We must call for a cancellation of the debt, along with Portugal and Greece and the other countries now being affected by the euro crisis. It is not a crisis; we are nearly facing into an abyss at this stage.

I put it to the Taoiseach that we must also raise with the European Union that Ireland should leave the euro if it does not accept cancellation of the debt to re-finance the State and re-inflate the economy. On the banks, we must abandon the bailout. These are failed entities and we must start anew, take control and ownership of our banking system and use that then to release money into the economy which is not being released now. We must set up a new bank to deal with mortgage debt, write down the debt of mortgages and release the debt burden on people.

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