Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

The €1.25 billion to be paid to financial speculators is nearly equal to the total amount being cut from the health and social protection budgets. In fact, there will be €25 million left over for the Minister, Deputy Quinn, in his review of the cuts in DEIS schools.

This Government is devastating our public health system which is already in crisis and people will die as a consequence. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, they have been targeted. The most vulnerable children will be hit by DEIS cuts and at the same time we have this amoral lunacy to be repeated again in June when another €1 billion will be handed over to the former Anglo Irish Bank. No Government in its right mind would do that without good reasons. Leaving aside the fear of the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, that the troika will bomb Dublin if we do not behave, what are the good reasons? First, it is claimed that Irish banks will find it more difficult to borrow. Irish banks have not been able to borrow, unless from the ECB and the Central Bank, since 2008. The same applies to the argument about European banks. Interbank lending in the EU is frozen. It makes no difference whatsoever if this bond is not paid. It might affect the State's ability to borrow, but the State cannot borrow in the bond market. That is why we had the troika bailout. It will not affect our ability to go to the bond market in 2013 because there is not a snowball's hope in hell of re-entering the bond market next year. A second bailout is inevitable.

What does Deputy Varadkar's bomb consist of? Is it a threat by the people who lend the State or the banks money, namely the troika? If the troika, or the ECB, pulls the plug the result will be a default, the very thing the whole set-up is supposed to avoid. The bomb would not only go off in Dublin. It would explode in Frankfurt, Paris and other places across Europe and in the international markets.

There is, of course, a risk in standing up to the bullying of the troika and the ECB, but look at the risk we are taking now. The Government is destroying our domestic economy with austerity. It is condemning thousands of people to mass unemployment and emigration, destroying our public services and putting at risk whatever progress we have made towards becoming economically viable with, at least, the minimum standards of a civilised modern society, and for what? It is sticking to a programme that cannot work and will not work. The Government knows that, I know it, the IMF knows it and Standard & Poor's knows it. We should call a halt to this madness and not pay this bond.

I appeal to Labour Party Members, who pretend to protect the most vulnerable, to come into the Chamber and support the motion. I ask them not to propose an amendment but to vote for the motion and support the people of this nation against the austerity cuts that have been implemented over the last four years.

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