Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

When the Taoiseach next meets the leadership of the European Union on 17 and 18 October and on 9 December, given his election pledge to the people, does he intend to resume to seek a significant cut in the amounts of bad debts that are to be repaid to the European bondholders, bankers and speculators who gambled so wildly on Irish property or given that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, capitulated to the president of the ECB, Mr. Trichet, in Poland two weeks ago, has he now given up on that promise and therefore negated what he said in his opening speech on the day the new Dáil first met with regard to sharing the burden and so on? When the Taoiseach meets the likes of Council President Van Rompuy, Commission President Barroso and ECB President Trichet in the next few weeks, will he demand an explanation for their insistence that the Irish people carry tens of billions euro on their backs for private European institutions? I would like him to ask that question on my behalf, as a representative of the Irish people and taxpayers. How can he sit at meetings with these people, who are blackmailing the Irish people, demanding that they be gouged for up to €60 billion, their services and living standards cut, the future of their children put at risk by being forced out of this country, in order to pay off private profit-seeking institutions in Europe? Does the Taoiseach find that revolting?

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