Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Perhaps this is an Irish version of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse doling out not so much war and pestilence, but savage austerity for our people.

I refer to Cabinet confidentiality as it applies to the economic management council. The original four horsemen of mythology came out of a book of scrolls sealed with seven seals, perhaps in anticipation of Cabinet confidentiality. How can there be Cabinet confidentiality when the Taoiseach meets a group of bankers? Does that not cease to be a Government meeting bound by confidentiality, especially when the Taoiseach is meeting agents of the organisations that were up to their necks in bringing about the collapse of this economy along with others? Is it not, therefore, a nonsense to insist on Cabinet confidentiality to deny the Dáil a full account of what happens at the economic management council in regard to strategy for the economy going into the future?

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