Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The eurozone is in a severe economic crisis, while growth is stagnant. Tragically, 26 million people are unemployed, including a huge cohort of youth. All over Europe, particularly in southern Europe, austerity is the agenda being driven by the leadership of the European Union. Is it not the reality that the Irish Presidency will mean absolutely nothing to the tens of millions of suffering working class poor people in the European Union considering that the Taoiseach in driving the austerity agenda here will do absolutely nothing to bring new ideas or a different policy to bear on what is going on in Europe economically? Is it not the reality that the Irish Presidency, under the Taoiseach's leadership, will be nothing more than a blur that will be quickly forgotten as far as the hard-pressed peoples of Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries are concerned because he has nothing original or radical to contribute in bringing about a change in economic policy which would give hope to people stuck in this crisis, while at the same time, incidentally, big European corporations have approximately €3 trillion euro of accumulated profits sitting in banks which they refuse to invest? The financial press was full of it last year. What will the Taoiseach do to force these funds into productive investment?

What is the real truth coming from EU summits when, for example, last year we were assured that there was a significant move towards the so-called separation of sovereign debt and bank debts and that major steps were allegedly being taken in that regard? The Taoiseach came into the Dáil two weeks ago with an agreement on Anglo Irish Bank's toxic debt which did exactly the opposite and pinned it formally to the Irish people and the sovereign for the next 40 years. Will he explain the disconnect between the two?

In regard to the intensive discussions the Taoiseach has been having in the course of the Presidency, will he explain the implications for the State and the Government arising from the two pack and the six pack process in the European Union as it affects the budgetary process in this country? What has been decided or what is coming from the discussions in regard to the submission of an Irish budget to European bureaucrats for approval before the Dáil or anybody else sees it? What are the implications for the date of the next budget - budget 2014?

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