Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Almost as good. I have two questions for the Taoiseach. What did he expect from Chancellor Merkel when he outlined to her the savage austerity measures he was inflicting on the ordinary people of the State to pay off the exorbitant gambling debts of German speculators and salvage the European financial market system? When he went to Germany, was he an innocent wandering abroad, like Little Red Riding Hood visiting her old granny, hoping to get a pat on the head and perhaps a few breaks on the promissory notes, but who instead found the big bad wolf demanding more austerity measures? As the Taoiseach indicated by his phrase, "What must be done to satisfy the market," is it the more likely that he and Chancellor Merkel believe the speculators in the financial markets can continue to dictate economic policy to tens or hundreds of millions of people throughout Europe in the interests of their profits and irrespective of the social cost and that Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy and the rest of them will act as mouthpieces for these financial gamblers?

Did the Taoiseach discuss with Chancellor Merkel political developments in Italy and Greece? Is there not a screaming contradiction between the European Union proclaiming itself a model of democracy and private institutions called the "financial markets" being allowed to dictate to nations such as Greece and Italy who their Prime Ministers and government members should be and that those members should be representatives of bankers and big business rather than elected representatives? Did the Taoiseach discuss the idea that democracy was being killed off in the European Union at the hands of the markets? Why do we not openly and honestly declare formally that democracy is being killed off in the Union and that the financial markets are being allowed to act like a dictatorship? Would that not be the truth of the matter, given what we have witnessed in the past three weeks?

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