Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Technical Group for allowing me some of its time. Recently, Fintan O'Toole wrote an article entitled "Debt deal is normalising the Irish freak show".

The article started:

There is the old story of the 18th century French lothario sitting at dinner beside a famously virtuous lady. "Will you sleep with me?" he asks. "Certainly not, how dare you suggest such a thing!" "Let us suppose, then, that I am the king of France and I offered half the kingdom for one night with you. Would you agree?" "Well, perhaps, but you are not the king of France." "Very well, then, we have agreed the principle, so all that remains is to negotiate the terms."


And so it was with Ireland’s promissory notes. Once any semblance of moral principle had been abandoned, all that was left was to negotiate the terms of surrender. And we’re still going to get screwed.

The Government has done its best in recent days to convince the Irish people that this is a great deal. It is not a great deal. The gambling debts of others have been firmly placed on our shoulders and those of our children and grandchildren.

This Government has never actively sought a write down of the debt burden that has been placed on us. Our small economy has to bear a staggering 43% of the entire cost of the European Union bank bailout, which is an amazing statistic. Every Irish citizen will have to put up €9,000, whereas the average European citizen will have to fork out €191. In recent days, those who support this Government in this House have been blowing about the saving of €20 billion that will be made. This is not true. The €20 billion figure has been continuously cited by the Government, but the correct figure is €8 billion. I am not trying to say this is a small sum of money. The bottom line is that the hard-pressed taxpayers of this country will still be paying two thirds of the cost of the promissory notes in the absence of a reduction in the capital sum which, in my opinion, we did not owe in the first instance.

I would like to read another extract from this week's article by Fintan O'Toole, who is a respectable national journalist. He does not have to engage in bullying tactics, resort to name-calling or make derogatory comments about people in order to earn his living. It is good to see a national journalist who does not have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to earn a living every week. The article continued:

Michael Noonan is now the daddy, of course, and he has carried off with great aplomb the ultimate act of normalising the freak show. The promissory notes were a monstrous freak, the star exhibit in the gallery of grotesques that is the Irish bank bailout. Its one virtue was in being so obviously freakish: the extortion of more than €30 billion from 1.8 million workers to pay entirely private debts is right up there with the Elephant Man and the Lobster Boy. Roll up! Roll up!

See this speech in context