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

Last week, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, which was set up as part of the troika deal, warned that growth forecasts had been consistently off and overly optimistic and that unless growth targets were met - it is looking highly like that they will not be met - our debt would become unsustainable.

That is what the Fiscal Advisory Council, not the left or the Opposition, is indicating. It has warned that all the growth projections so far have been wrong, and all the dangers are on the down side.

Against the background is the question of us getting some relief on the debt, which is absolutely urgent as it will become unsustainable otherwise. Over the summer months the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance have intimated there might be some progress on the debt issue but last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel put that to bed and said we would get nothing. She indicated there is no envisaged change and none is necessary. She set out her stall. The only idea those people seem to be concerned with is that we continue to impose austerity and even if there is a restructuring of the debt, it would be conditional on further austerity. We are either in the grips of the loan sharks in the troika and their demands for austerity or the requirements of the markets to impose austerity.

Is there any choice for the people in the country that would give relief from austerity? Is the Taoiseach pursuing any deal on the debt that will allow him to say, in the upcoming budget in December or the following budget, that people will endure less pain or austerity? Will the Taoiseach comment on the fact that, in its report, the Fiscal Advisory Council indicated that three quarters of the way through next year this country will not be spending more than it can afford, with the entire basis of the deficit being interest on debt? Is it an acceptable choice that in 2013, we are saying it is more important to pay bondholders and satisfy the loan sharks of the international markets while subjecting the people of this country, who simply cannot take any more, to further cuts and austerity?

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