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

-----and antidemocratic. What will the next move be? Will we do away with elections altogether because the people do not understand what the sages on the other side of the House do?

Let us be absolutely clear about the legal position, no matter how the Government twists and turns to try to get out of it. The treaty refers to permanent measures. Permanent means no government can change them. If that is not an infringement of the constitutional right of the citizens of the country to determine their social and economic future, I do not know what is. Permanent means permanent and that is what the Government proposes to lock us into.

It then tried to cover this with blather about jobs which people are desperate for. Please explain to me how, if it can impose, as the treaty will require, at least ten years of brutal austerity to meet these targets, it can create jobs and growth? It is like saying one will save a drowning man while holding his head under water. People are being suffocated by austerity and cutbacks and are forced onto their backs by the burden of the casino gambling debts of toxic banks.

It is unbelievable. It is not just this economy that has been crushed by austerity. The economies of Germany and Europe are slowing down. Every forecaster, including the IMF and ESRI, says the economies in Europe and Ireland are slowing down. At what point does one realise it is not working and is strangling and crucifying our economy and the European economy?

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