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

With the agreement of the House, I will share time with Deputies Joan Collins and Joe Higgins.

It is an absolute disgrace that the Government has imposed a guillotine on the debate on the European Communities (Amendment) Bill 2012. It is particularly disgraceful when the Government has, effectively, admitted that we are heading towards a second so-called bailout when we emerge from the current EU-IMF programme. The reason for the use of the guillotine is that the Government knows that a serious public discussion on the ESM would reveal that it is not, as it claims, some sort of insurance policy, a line of credit or bailout for ordinary citizens but a sinister Trojan horse being driven into the heart of Europe to impose more poisonous austerity on ordinary citizens and further dismantle democracy within the European Union. It is a permanent austerity mechanism, not a stability mechanism. The treaty makes this very clear. Assistance is strictly conditional on the ESM dictating further austerity measures to be imposed on ordinary citizens taking responsibility for the gambling debts of bankers and speculators. Angela Merkel made this absolutely clear in recent days. Calls for direct recapitalisation of casino banks in Spain are being dismissed out of hand by Chancellor Merkel who is making it clear that recapitalisation must occur through the sovereign. In other words, she is demanding that ordinary citizens, working people, the least well-off and the vulnerable, in Ireland and across Europe take responsibility for the gambling debts of bankers and agree to sign up to crippling austerity measures to pay off these gambling debts. An economic coup d'état has been achieved by the European authorities, taking advantage of the atmosphere of crisis in order to permanently unload the massive gambling debts incurred, the scale of which we still do not know or understand, onto the backs of ordinary working people across Europe and tie them into a straitjacket of austerity to pay off these debts. It is truly extraordinary.

The provisions of the Bill are alarming. First, the Government consistently fails to acknowledge that this so-called insurance policy which is, in fact, a straitjacket of austerity to be imposed on ordinary people could cost us up to €11 billion, a figure which could be even higher. The board of governors of the ESM will have the right to raise the limit to unknown levels in order to bail out European banks. Is it not bad enough that the people of Ireland have been crippled with austerity to bail out the Irish casino banks? We are now signing up to contribute, possibly, €11 billion or more to bail out the casino banks in the rest of Europe. If that is not bad enough, there will be no legal or political accountability for this Trojan horse in the centre of Europe. One could not make this up. It is like something from a James Bond movie. The board of governors, staff and the institution of the ESM will be immune from prosecution. When one considers that what we will set up is one of the most powerful institutions in Europe, which will have major power over governments and the citizens of countries across Europe, the notion that it would be immune from any kind of legal prosecution is simply extraordinary. It is intended that the documents and archives of the ESM will be inviolable so that if this monster which is being created to impose austerity and protect the European banks should ever require investigation that is ruled out in advance. We will never know how decisions are arrived at, what decisions are being made and what is going on inside this enormously powerful institution. Legal protections are being set up and we are being asked to sign up to make the ESM immune from any oversight, investigation or legal prosecution. It is absolutely disgusting. It is part of the ongoing dismantling of democracy across Europe that we have seen in the course of this economic crisis where democratically elected leaders are deposed to put in technocrats and bankers to run countries. Now, having done that in a couple of countries we want to set up an institution that is above the law but will have enormous economic power to dictate the fate of millions of people across Europe. That is shocking in the extreme.

What makes this all the more pathetic is that the Government is trying to push the Bill through this week without proper discussion, to ensure the public does not know what the ESM really is and what its real consequences will be, after it has been yet again humiliated by Angela Merkel. No matter how much the Government pulls the best boy in the class routine to do anything Angela Merkel and the ECB demands, she slaps the Government in the face every time, making it absolutely clear that there will be no deal on banking debt for this country, no write-down of the banking debt - if the Government has even asked for that - but in any event she has pre-empted the Government's possible request for such a write-down because she has made it clear that we are not getting it. No matter how much the Government cuddles up to Angela Merkel, no matter how much it is the swot of the austerity class in Europe she humiliates the Government and slaps it in the face every time yet still it pursues this policy of submitting slavishly to her agenda. It is incredible.

In doing so, the Government is also stabbing in the back the movement that is developing in Europe to challenge Merkel's agenda. Other countries and governments in Europe are beginning to show some backbone and to stand up to Merkel. For example the Spanish Government has said it is not willing to submit slavishly to Merkel's agenda. I hope a Greek Government may emerge soon that is unwilling to swallow any more of the austerity poison and will stand up to her. The people in France elected a government in the hope at least that it will stand up to Merkel and demand an end to the austerity madness and focus on prioritising the need for employment and economic growth. Against that background, instead of joining with the movement, delaying the ratification of the treaty and demanding the write-down of the gambling debt of banks being imposed on ordinary people the Government is rushing the legislation through as fast as it possibly can to prove what good boys and girls they are to Angela Merkel. That is undermining the movement that is challenging her in Europe. It is no accident that Merkel and many of the more conservative German newspapers were jumping for joy at the passing of the fiscal treaty but no reward was given to Ireland for that in terms of a write-down of debt. In spite of that the Government still carries on with this ridiculous, pathetic, humiliating stance it is taking of doing anything that Angela Merkel asks it no matter what the consequences are for Europe or the citizens of this country. It is pathetic in the extreme.

We will most certainly oppose the ESM. I appeal to the Government to wake up and recognise that no matter how much it sucks up to Angela Merkel, the ECB and the merchants of austerity, they are not listening, they are not willing to give a break to ordinary people and what must be done is to resist that agenda and resist a piece of legislation that is about permanently institutionalising the same austerity and the same dictatorial control of financial institutions and technocrats in Europe over the people of this country and the citizens of Europe.

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