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

Does the Taoiseach agree this is not about forms of words, but rather about the brutal austerity that has been imposed on people in this country for the past three years which has led to a massacre of jobs, a massacre of our public services and attacks on the most vulnerable in our society to the point where many people are on their knees? All of that resulted from a decision by governments in this and other European countries to bail out banks at all costs and to impose austerity. Given the obvious disastrous consequences of three years of austerity and bailing out banks, how on earth can the Taoiseach or other European leaders expect that institutionalising austerity in the form of a euro compact will make things any better? Surely it is absolutely inevitable that it will do exactly the same as it has done in the past three years. By prioritising banks and their balance sheets and insisting on the imposition of austerity on ordinary people, one will get the same result and the situation will get even worse.

The Taoiseach referred to firewalls against contagion in the eurozone. Where are the firewalls for the unemployed in the euro compact? Where are the firewalls for the vulnerable? Where are the firewalls for workers? My colleagues and I from the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform met the German ambassador earlier today. He told us that announcements would be made on Monday regarding stimulus measures and job creation. He did not say much about what these measures would involve but that, given the demand for fiscal rectitude and austerity, they would hinge on competitiveness. What the hell does that mean? When wages have been ratcheted down to the extent that most low and middle income workers in this country have been impoverished, when we have 400,000 unemployed and the numbers on the streets are multiplying daily, what does competitiveness mean? Does it mean the country must be starving before investment magically floods back into it, following which everything will be all right again? Where are the proposals in the euro compact for job creation? Where are the proposals that will ensure investment? If we do not get people back to work or do not have investment to make this happen, we are on the road towards a 1930s-type crisis. Even Christine Lagarde of the IMF is saying this. I cannot understand how the Government is slapping itself on the back for signing up to a treaty that will mean austerity and suffering for the people in perpetuity. Perhaps the Taoiseach might explain where this is leading.

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