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

On the Cabinet sub-committee on mortgage arrears, did this committee meet with the troika and discuss its demand that legislative impediments to banks repossessing family homes should be a priority for the Government? It is difficult to tally the Taoiseach's soothing words about the low level of repossessions in the country and his assurances that the personal insolvency agency will protect home owners from the loss of their family homes with the simultaneous demand by the troika that legal impediments to the right of banks to repossess family homes should be a priority. Did this committee discuss that with them and could they explain their rationale in making this demand? Is it not the case, consequently, given this demand, that those with mortgages, particularly distressed mortgages, should be fearful because our troika masters are demanding that banks should be able to repossess more homes?

On the Economic Management Council it is clear from the protections, in terms of low corporate tax rate and a refusal to impose the financial transaction tax, that the submissions of the banks and groups such as the clearing house group were listened to by the Economic Management Council. Is it equally obvious that the Economic Management Council did not listen to the plethora of civil society groups and groups dealing with poverty, such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Social Justice Ireland and the trade unions, which were representing the least well off and struggling sections in society and which made submission after submission asking that the burden of austerity in the budget should not fall on those who are already struggling to survive? Is it the case that the Economic Management Council, the inner cabal of the Government, listened only to one section of society - the troika, the banks, the very wealthy - and simply refused to listen to and ignored the civil society and other group organisations that represented ordinary citizens - low and middle income earners, the unemployed and the vulnerable in society? Is there something radically wrong with the way this inner cabal of the Government is deporting itself, in listening only to one minority section of society and not listening at all to the voices of the majority?

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