Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the alleged intention at a previous summit that there should be a breaking of the link between banking and sovereign debt, does the Taoiseach agree that this can only have meaning for the Irish people if the €64 billion of taxpayers' funds that was used to bail out the banks and the bondholders is paid back to the Irish people? Does he also agree that the European institutions and the IMF, which were disgracefully allowed to cow an Irish Government into pay the gambling debts of speculators and bond holders, should now take the hit, along with the speculators they were protecting? Does he further agree that if there is any meaning to this and if it is not implemented in that way, the Irish people are fully entitled to cancel the debt, for which they have no responsibility whatsoever? Only that would give any meaning to the bone that Chancellor Merkel threw the Taoiseach some time ago, when he begged her to give him political cover, when she said that Ireland was a "special case". If the Taoiseach disagrees with what I am suggesting, I ask him to outline very clearly what is meant by a "special case", in the sense of any impact it might have on the lives of the Irish people. Perhaps the Chancellor was at a complete tangent and meant something else entirely - that we were all great fiddlers; played the fiddle all day; and danced the Walls of Limerick and the Siege of Ennis or some such.

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