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

At this stage I am not sure whether the Taoiseach is being humiliated by the powers that be in the European Union or if he is playing some grand trick on the people with promises of debt relief and also some relief on the crippling burden imposed by the European Union in order to protect the bankers and bondholders when he knows well we are getting nothing. Whatever the truth of the matter, the people are being humiliated and crushed with the austerity that the European Union demands in order to protect the bankers and bondholders. It is insisting that they are protected at all costs regardless of the consequences for ordinary people, vulnerable sectors, workers, the unemployed, the disabled and the young. All of those things matter not a jot to the European Union so long as the bankers are paid back.

All of that might be excused if there was some sign that it was working. We have heard from virtually every official source in the past week or two that what we have been saying on this side of the House for the past two years is right, that the impact of cuts and austerity will not help the economy recover but is doing critical damage to the economy and the European economy.

The latest announcement was on the British economy. Its equivalent of the fiscal advisory council advised that its predictions for growth in the British economy and for the impact of austerity on Britain's economy have been exactly 100% wrong, just as the fiscal advisory council and the IMF have admitted that their predictions of the impact of austerity on this economy have been 100% wrong, which is precisely what we have been saying for the past two years.

The Taoiseach can rubbish us as he does - it seems to be his standard tactic to rubbish the criticisms of the left. Is he now saying that the IMF, the Office for Budget responsibility in Britain and the fiscal advisory council are wrong in saying that the impact of austerity over the past two years has been much worse - by a margin of 100% - than the Taoiseach told this House and the public it would be? At what point will he admit he and powers that be in Europe were wrong, and that the prescription to help the economy of Europe, including this country, to recover has turned out not to be medicine but poison that is destroying our prospects for economic growth?

When will he take that message to Europe? When will he stand up and be counted, and side with the ordinary people, who are taking to the streets in Europe, saying that this is wrong, not working and is the road to disaster? Is there any point on the trajectory towards economic depression when the Taoiseach will finally put up his hands and admit this is not working and that we need an alternative strategy? Is it that despite the crocodile tears he sheds, secretly the Taoiseach, along with the Chancellor Merkel, is fully behind imposing austerity onto ordinary people because the real agenda is not to help the European economy recover or get debt relief but to asset strip countries, such as this, of its health service, education, natural resources, oil and forests, as is being done in Greece, Portugal and Spain? That is what is happening. Behind all the rhetoric and all the fine words at European Council meetings and in this Chamber, what is happening on the ground for ordinary people is a series of cuts and privatisation.

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