Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Let us look at our unemployment rates, the 430,000 people who are unemployed – 60% of whom are long-term unemployed. Let us look at the 87,000 who emigrated last year and the similar number who are planning to emigrate next year. Let us look at the one in four people who are in mortgage distress, who have either interest-only repayments or are in mortgage arrears. Look at the 100,000 people who were forced to go to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul simply to put food on their table or oil into tanks to keep warm during the winter months.

They are the reasons and the mandate that the Government had to say to the ECB that we are not paying this back. I watched Mario Draghi's press conference and he was like a Cheshire cat. There is no more ELA because the ECB got what it wanted, hook, line and sinker. It will be paid back in full and bondholders who will buy or hold this bond in the future will also get full payment on this toxic debt and the interest on top of it. Shame on the Minister, shame on the Taoiseach and shame on the Tánaiste. This is not the mandate they were given.

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