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

The Fianna Fáil Government bankrupted the country with a decision taken in the early hours of the morning, we now know under a diktat of the ECB. Tonight, in the same sort of circumstances, the Government is taking a decision about one of the main culprits of the financial crisis and involving vast amounts of money, also under a diktat of the ECB. The ECB says "jump" and the Government says "how high", even when it means trampling on the democracy of the House and the right of citizens to know what the Government, along with its friends in the ECB, is proposing for them.

The suggestion that the Government is ramming through the Bill as a result of an unintended leak is an insult to the intelligence of the House and of the people. During Leaders' Questions on Tuesday last, I suggested that the Government was engaged in an elaborate charade. The Tánaiste was going around Chile talking about the Government collapsing. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy White, was talking about the Croke Park deal collapsing, and Ministers were smiling like Cheshire cats, as they still are, and saying there was nothing up.

Tonight's events clearly confirm, however, that this is the second act in the amateur dramatics that started earlier this week that will conclude tomorrow-----

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