John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)

I refer to the troika's warning this week that a financial bomb would go off in Dublin if Anglo Irish Bank senior bondholders are not repaid. This was a horrendous scaremongering tactic designed to create anxiety and panic among the people. The implication that the troika holds a bomb that could decimate the Irish economy is shameful and wholly inappropriate. It is emotive and threatening behaviour. The people will not fall for this PR stunt. They have more to be worried about given that the latest statistics show that 60,000 householders are in mortgage arrears, Irish householders now owe twice their income and 100 people a day are leaving the country. All this despite the €20 billion plus we have already slashed in budgets.

What is confusing and angering people is why, despite the harrowing austerity measures they are being forced to endure and our 14.4% unemployment rate - 18% in my constituency - the budget deficit remains static. How can this be? People have now realised the implications of the austerity measures, which bow before the greed of the bondholders. Despite all their sacrifices and the cuts they have sustained, there is no improvement in their daily lives. All we hear are warnings that we face more of the same for years to come. People throughout the country are asking - Members of the Government must be hearing it too - why we are handing over to private bondholders and banks €1.2 billion, which we have no legal or moral obligation to pay. The argument that we do so because we promised to is ludicrous and offensive to the people. That is the only argument being made by the Government side.

People are asking why, if the country is broke and they had to sustain cuts of €2.8 billion in the last budget, we are giving €750 million to unsecured bondholders. Fine Gael promised prior to the last election that it would burn the bondholders and bring about change and reform in this area. I have listened carefully to some of the words and phrases used in this debate, including "austerity", "default", "zombie banks" and "not our debt". Fine Gael used these words prior to the last election. It came up with the word "austerity". It accused the previous Government of implementing austerity measures. It used the word "default" and the Labour Party most definitely used it. There is no one here from the Labour Party, members of which used the word "default" on every television and radio programme. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, when in Opposition used the phrase "zombie bank".

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