Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Taoiseach said that Jean-Claude Trichet ruled out the possibility of bondholders taking some of the burden of a crisis they created. Let us be clear; it is they, the bankers and others, who created it. Did he explain why? What is the rationale for saying that we cannot force bondholders, the financiers and the speculators, to bear the burden? The Taoiseach can correct me if I am wrong, but from what he is saying it seems to me that the reason is because it might spread the contagion into the rest of Europe. But is another way of putting that simply that what they are doing is defending the interests of German, French and British banks who are in fact responsible for the problem? In one sense is it in our interests or in the interests of dealing with the crisis as it is not to acknowledge that they are partly to blame for it and that they must share the burden? In these talks with either Jean-Claude Trichet, the eurozone leaders in general or the EU-IMF, I wonder if there is any discussion about the fact there is a serious body of opinion - not left-wing opinion but main stream opinion, including Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman in The Irish Times today, and the UN Committee on Trade and Development - which is saying the overall policy of prioritising bailing out banks and bondholders has a big cost attached because it imposes austerity on ordinary people. It is not just causing extreme suffering but is also strangling the real economy. It is contracting demand and the entire package will fail because the measures being taken to prop up the bankers and bondholders are ensuring there cannot be economic growth or recovery.

See this speech in context