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

It is me and then Joe and Stephen, or Deputies Donnelly and Higgins. The stroke pulled by the Government last week is not a victory for the citizens of this State. On the contrary, with this manoeuvre, the Government has fully and comprehensively nailed the citizens of this country to the cross of Anglo Irish Bank's gambling debts for decades to come. Claiming this action as a triumph is like saying we are not going to be destroyed by Anglo Irish Bank's debts; we are going to be utterly devastated by those debts. That makes little difference to the people or the economy. It is entirely predictable that Fianna Fáil has supported the Government in this, revealing its utterly fake opposition to Government policy and showing that when the chips are down, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party are birds of a feather that flock together at the expense of the ordinary citizens of this country and our economy.

If Fianna Fáil, much of the media and the political establishment have fallen for this stroke, the ordinary people of the country have not. A total of 100,000 people took to the streets last week precisely because they do not believe it and saw through the hype and spin. What they want to know is where is the relief and victory for them. The Government will not be able to provide this because the reality is that it will not be reversing the years of austerity and cuts that have already been imposed by it and the last Government. People will still get bills for hundreds of euro for property charges through their doors in March and the Government will still impose the water charges and savage the health, social welfare and education budgets in the next budget and the one after that. They understand that every euro the Government pays for the next number of decades to pay off Anglo Irish Bank's gambling debts is a euro that could go into job creation, economic growth and the domestic economy. That is the reality and the Government will not be able to spin its way out of it for long.

The alternative was not to "restructure" debts that were not ours. They were to say, quite simply, that they are not our debts and we are not paying them and to ensure that the need for jobs, economic growth and for fairness and justice in dealing with this economic crisis comes first. The Government and Fianna Fáil will not give the people that but the people on the streets last Saturday are the only force that can bring about a just solution to this crisis.

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