Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The straitjacket imposed by Fianna Fáil is still in place. Far from removing or even loosening the Fianna Fáil straitjacket, this Government wants to make it permanent by signing up to an austerity treaty that will tie this and future Governments to a narrow, rigid economic doctrine, condemning our people to more long years of economic stagnation, unemployment, poverty and emigration. It comes as no surprise that this is the position espoused by Fine Gael, and not for the first time, but the greatest vexation and annoyance for so many good people who used their votes wisely, as they thought, is that the Labour Party is complicit in all of this.

The Sinn Féin motion before the Dáil tonight exposes the pathetic weakness of this Fine Gael-Labour Party Government on the European stage. Instead of using the mandate of the people to demand our rights, it has crumbled. It has willingly accepted the blackmail clause in the European stability mechanism treaty to claim that an Irish rejection of the austerity treaty would see this State barred from emergency funding from the ESM, a claim that is clearly false.

This is yet another attempted swindle of the Irish people by the political establishment in both Dublin and Brussels. As our motion states, the Government agreed to the blackmail amendment to ensure that in the event of a referendum here, it could use this issue to frighten people into supporting an austerity treaty for fear of losing access to emergency funding. This was a disgraceful course for the Government to take, and it is under a moral obligation to reverse it. It is yet another reason for the people to vote "No" in the forthcoming referendum. We strongly urge them to do so and we urge all Deputies, irrespective of their politics, to vote with their conscience and in line with the mandate given to them and support the Sinn Féin motion.

See this speech in context