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

The Minister knows well because he has read the ICT report on the Eircom privatisation which was published this year. It makes me laugh to hear Fianna Fáil criticising the possible sale of State assets when they presided over Eircom, which was a disaster, let to 5,000 jobs being lost and to massive enrichment for Tony O'Reilly, Goldman Sachs, George Soros and all the rest of the vultures. It is shameful for a Labour Party Minister and a Labour Party Government to stand over in any way or to justify the sale of State assets which the Minister knows has been a disaster in the past and which will do nothing but enrich corporate vultures, chief executive officers who will be getting inordinate salaries while at the same time resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. It is beyond debating. What we need to do is to get out on the streets like the Greeks and the Americans and resist this. It is shameful that the Labour Party should be part of it.

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