Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

I would like to read a sort extract from an article in the Financial Times that was written by Gideon Rachman. Many people like him are worried about where we are going. The article states:

Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, has officially ruled out a vast expansion of its bond-buying programme. But the ECB has agreed to lend lots more money to European banks on easy terms - and they in turn will probably have their arms twisted to buy government bonds. But loading up shaky European banks with otherwise unsaleable government debt is not a sustainable solution. It might succeed in preventing the European economy from suffering a heart attack. The trouble is that the only alternative to a heart attack seems to be slow suffocation. The fiscal compact essentially commits all EU countries to tough austerity measures, without providing any permanent mechanism for transferring money from prosperous bits of Europe to those that are stuck in a semi-depression. A "transfer union" is still anathema to Germany. The only immediate prospect offered to the indebted states of southern Europe [and other peripheral countries] is "internal devaluation" - for which read cuts in wages and pensions, higher taxes and much higher unemployment.

I do not think what we are being offered is very attractive.

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