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

At what point will the Government get it? It has taken the best boy in the class routine to the most extreme lengths in pushing through this treaty when other forces in Europe are at least delaying it or beginning to question Mrs. Merkel's strategy. The Government continues with the best boy in the class routine and only a few days after this country passed the fiscal treaty, Mrs. Merkel slaps the Government in the face again. There has been no reward, no deal on bank debt, no change to the terms of the austerity arrangements and she has made it clear that Germany insists that ordinary citizens, working people - the vulnerable - will continue to pay the price of the crisis in the system. All of the assistance will be strictly conditional - that is the key term: "strictly conditional" - on continuing with the poison of austerity inflicted on ordinary people. When will the Government learn that trying to suck up to Mrs. Angela Merkel and the austerity boot boys of the troika is not working? The more one encourages her to think there is no end to the punishment we are willing to take, the more she dishes out the punishment. Despite saying the Government is supporting the forces in Europe that are now calling for a growth and jobs agenda in Europe, the reality is that by ramming the fiscal treaty through with such speed and now the ESM, in particular in the case of the latter which is not being discussed, it is undermining and sabotaging the forces in Europe that are beginning to challenge Frau Merkel.

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