Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

What the Government is involved in is deeply dishonest. It is hardly surprising the Government has not been able to do its maths. It still does not know the full cost to the taxpayer of the Anglo Irish promissory note. It is confused on the scale of the national debt to the order of a staggering €3.6 billion. All of this is now academic, however, as it appears the Government never even sought a debt write-down. It prefers to continue with a policy that makes every man, woman and child in this State pay for the mistakes of bankers, developers and politicians rather than force the banks to pay their fair share.

Today of all days, when taxpayers' money has been used by Anglo Irish Bank to pay over €700 million to a bondholder, does the Minister not think it is time to come clean on his policy on toxic banking debt? The people have a right to know if the Government has abandoned its pre-election promises and programme for Government commitments. If so, when did the Cabinet abandon the policy of seeking to impose losses on private banking debt? What did the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, say when the Minister told her about paying this bondholder after his conversation with Trichet? She jumped up and down on these Opposition benches about imposing burden sharing on unguaranteed bondholders. How did she react when the Minister for Finance told the Cabinet that even though the bond was sold on at 20 cent in the euro, the Government must pay the full 100 cent? What did she say when the Minister added Ireland would have to pay another €1.25 billion on unguaranteed bonds to Anglo Irish Bank on 24 January 2012? Did the Labour Party Cabinet members say anything against this or did they just vote to put the people to the slaughter and come up with more austerity measures so the people can bail out these high finance bankers who lent recklessly to Anglo Irish Bank?

This is not the commitment the Government entered into with the people before the last general election. In the past eight months, the Minister has done little to reduce the debt burden on ordinary families. While he may wax lyrical about the reduction of the bailout interest rate, which is to be welcomed, it must be remembered it only happened because of the Greek situation. These were crumbs thrown from the table. The Government's approach is ask for nothing, expect nothing but welcome everything.

Last week was the Minister's golden opportunity. He could have argued that our debt levels were unsustainable and that the toxic private banking debt was not the responsibility of the Irish, or indeed the German or French taxpayer. He could have argued the Irish Government should not be liable for the infamous Anglo Irish Bank promissory note with which Fianna Fáil and the Green Party saddled us.

Instead, he did nothing. Consequently, hundreds of thousands of people will remain on the dole because money that could have been used to invest in job creation will be wasted paying off toxic banking debts. Tens of thousands of people will fall into mortgage arrears because the Government refuses to consider making the banks shoulder their fair share of the cost of the crisis. A whole generation of young people will be forced to seek a future abroad because the Government refuses to break with the failed Fianna Fáil policy of putting the interests of banks and bondholders before the interests of our children's education and our grandparents' health care.

At least the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, had the decency to seek a mandate for his austerity policies. While his move has come a little late in the day and his motivations are far from noble, he has given the people the final say.

What was the Government's response to this development? The Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, talked about hand grenades. That is some way to talk about the will of the people. Is this how the Government sees the exercise of democracy, as a hand grenade thrown into the machinations of unelected political elites in the European Commission and Central Bank? God forbid that we ask the people their opinion on matters that will impact on their lives and those of their children and grandchildren. God forbid we seek a mandate for policies that put bondholders and hedge funds before citizens. The Government's disregard for the basic principles of democracy is a matter of record. Deputies opposite disregarded the will of the people after the first referendum on the Lisbon treaty. They continue, in government, to disregard the will of the people by denying them a referendum on the current bailout programme and on the future of the European Stability Mechanism. I repeat Sinn Féin's demand for a referendum on the policies of bank bailout and austerity contained in the EU-IMF programme and the proposed changes to the European Financial Stability Facility and the future permanent bailout mechanism, the ESM. The Minister has failed once again to stand up for the interests of Irish people. His meek and cowardly acceptance of the European Commission and European Central Bank's policies of bank bailout and crippling austerity is nothing short of social and economic sabotage, forced on a population which only eight months ago voted his party into office on a promise of change. How those voters must regret their decision.

Regarding the detail of the deal announced last week in Brussels, the Minister can at least take comfort in the fact that his failure is shared in equal measure among his counterparts in the European Council. This was the 14th eurozone crisis summit and it followed what has become a predictable pattern. First we have the hype, with talk of the summit to end the crisis and the deal to calm the markets. Then we have the last-minute rush to dampen expectations as the inevitable disagreements, particularly between the French and Germans, once again appear unsurmountable. After that we have the summit itself running late into the night, followed by a hastily cobbled together half-agreement which is big on rhetoric but short on detail. The following morning we have political leaders basking in the initially positive market reaction before the inevitable unravelling of the deal as the unworked out detail is exposed and the markets once again take fright.

The same problems emerge time after time. The European leaders simply do not understand the causes of the crisis and, as a consequence, are unable to devise the solutions to bring it to an end. Instead, everything they do makes it worse, with more austerity imposed on already suffering populations in deeply indebted countries. Is it any wonder Greece is in such chaos? The policy of bank bailout is continued despite the lack of certainty as to the size of the black hole at the heart of the European banking system. Last week the Minister and his European colleagues agreed to increase massively the funds available to the EFSF. In doing so they dramatically increased the exposure of ordinary European taxpayers to that toxic black hole. They fixed the EFSF so well that they cannot even go to the bond markets today to raise €3 billion for Ireland.

See this speech in context