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

-----the austerity the Government is meting out to them and to vent their fury at the broken promises of the Government and of the Labour Party in particular that it would all be different. I am sure the Taoiseach also is aware of the anger that now is building up among public sector front-line workers over the Government's plans to savage them even further in a so-called extension of the Croke Park deal. My question to the Taoiseach is to ask whether these circumstances and pressures explain the rather odd goings-on within the Government over the last few days. I refer to the way in which the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade travelled to Latin America and told European Union officials the Government is in jeopardy unless it gets a deal on the promissory notes issue and the way in which the Minister of State, Deputy White, stated on national television that there may be no Croke Park deal unless the Government gets a deal. Is this something of an elaborate charade on the part of the Government to create a bit of drama about whether we get a deal on the promissory notes issue to sweeten the bitter pill of the attacks the Government is planning on workers over the next number of months? Was the game not given away on this little charade by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, when he stated that regardless of whether we get a deal, it will make no difference to the level of cuts or austerity that will be imposed in future budgets? Is it not the truth that the Government - and the Labour Party in particular - are treating Members to an elaborate charade to deflect attention away from the cuts the Government now seeks to impose yet again on public sector workers-----

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