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

We all know why that is.

I asked the Taoiseach 12 specific questions, but the only one he sort of answered was the first. I asked him whether he had raised the issue of unemployment with Chancellor Merkel and what response she gave. He did not tell us what her response was. This is indicative of all the answers and what is fast developing into the most serious economic crisis since the 1930s, in that there are vagaries. We want to know specifically what Chancellor Merkel stated she would do about the burgeoning unemployment crisis across Europe.

Did the Taoiseach raise the question of the gross immorality and the damaging economic consequences of Ireland being forced to repay senior bondholders in full, specifically the €3 billion per year in respect of the toxic Anglo Irish Bank and its bondholders? What did Chancellor Merkel say about this?

Did the Taoiseach ask the Chancellor about the downward projection of growth rates in Europe, including in Ireland, as predicted by all serious analysts? What did she say in response? Did she have anything to say about the fact that, after two years of austerity measures, it was increasingly clear - there is consensus across all serious analyses - that austerity was deepening the economic crisis and careering us towards recession? Was there any discussion of this point of view which is widely held as opposed to a view articulated by socialists alone?

When the Taoiseach asked whether we had alternatives, did he discuss a recent conference held in Iceland at which the IMF had admitted that Iceland had done it right and that we had done the wrong thing? Iceland let the banks fail, strengthened as opposed to cutting welfare payments and imposed capital controls. It is now back in the bond markets. Krugman and Stiglitz stated what Iceland had done was right, whereas what Ireland and other countries had done was wrong. Did the Taoiseach discuss a radically different alternative, one that has proved itself viable, and the fact that the Icelandic economy was recovering because it had repudiated the debts of bondholders and speculators, something he, Chancellor Merkel, the troika and all the rest running the European Union had refused to do, even though their strategy was demonstrably failing?

Did the Taoiseach discuss the deep concerns felt across Europe about democratically elected leaders being pushed out of office in Italy and Greece and replaced by two people who were former members of the board of Goldman Sachs and whose main qualification was that they had been insiders in the banking and financial system? People believe this to be a serious subversion of democracy in Europe at the behest of the markets.

What treaty changes does Chancellor Merkel envisage? Is she asking for tax harmonisation, less democracy in member states, more dictatorship by the European Central Bank and the European Commission and more penalties and sanctions to be imposed on states that refuse to submit to austerity at the behest of the markets? Those are the questions I asked. Most of them were not answered and perhaps the Taoiseach can answer them and comment on the issue of Iceland.

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