Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

It is utterly perverse for the Tánaiste to ask people to pull on the green jersey in order to bring about cutbacks in our schools and in the health system, and to take half a million home help hours out of the system. That is not the stuff of the green jersey, it is the stuff of seeking a gold star on a copybook from the Tánaiste's friends in the troika. He says it is all about recovery and that we are marking milestones, but let us look at the stated objectives of this bailout. They were deficit reduction on the one hand and re-entering money markets on the other. On both counts the bailout is failing. The deficit remains at €8.7 billion and the interest rate on ten-year Government bonds remains at 7.5%.

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