Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not our debt. The Government’s approach will tie this bad debt to citizens for decades to come – our children and grandchildren will have to pay billions. We are handing a legacy debt to them and we have no idea what the economic and political circumstances will be when the bonds mature. That is wrong. We should not place on the shoulders of children not yet born a legacy which might well damage their future.

That is not good government. It is not good strategic, visionary government. It is short-term, short-sighted opportunism. It is matched only by the Government’s flawed negotiating approach. The Government needed to tell the ECB and the EU that enough is enough. Instead, it told the ECB and the EU that it would honour the debt, that the Government would not have the word “defaulter” written on our foreheads, and it gave up its best negotiating hand at the outset.

The Government finds it easier to be tougher on citizens than it does on our partners in the European Union. It has cut respite care and child benefit, the back to work clothing and footwear allowance and it has taxed maternity benefit. A family home tax is being introduced and septic tank charges have been imposed. It is easy for the Government to be tough on the small people.

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