Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The motion before us seeks the approval of the Dáil to endorse the Government's decision on exiting the bailout without a precautionary credit line, but we are being asked to do this in a vacuum. When the Technical Group last met representatives of the troika, we explored what the precautionary credit line would look like and what it would take to put it together. We were told it would involve the development of a set of measures similar to the programme we are about to exit, and the process would have to be endorsed by various member states. It is clear there would have been a political price to pay in addition to the actual price, which has just been pointed out.

We have heard several Government Ministers and spokespersons over the past number of months indicate that we want to get out and stay out of the programme, which is true. The reality is that we continue to have an unsustainable debt, with much assumed as a national debt on the insistence of the ECB, which is one third of the troika. The decision of 29 June 2012 by eurozone leaders to allow rescue funds to lend directly to recapitalised banks was to be a game-changer, according to the Tánaiste. On that occasion he argued that it would be done to ease Ireland's path back to the financial markets, but that has not happened. The payment of the debt - it is not our debt - has instead been pushed out for a number of years, and the negotiating tactic of the Government has backfired. The German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, recently poured cold water over the idea of ESM relief for Ireland, and he was joined in that view by Finland and the Netherlands. On Saturday, the Minister of State may have heard Mr. Daniel Gros of the Centre for European Studies on RTE when he pretty much gave us the same view.

How will this ease the path back to the financial markets? Does the Tánaiste still believe that we need and will get this game-changer? Professor Ashoka Mody of the IMF team that negotiated the initial so-called bailout recently stated that ultimately a lender wants to know whether a debtor has the income to repay a debt. He argued that GDP growth is now a more credible way to repay Ireland's debt than a continued period of austerity, and his diagnosis was that some respite from austerity was needed. That was presented to us via the €2.5 billion in cuts in the last budget that were to be a relief from austerity. The three-card trick was played, as the agreement for display to outside sources, particularly the troika, had been that this would be a budget with €3.1 billion in cuts. The Government asked us to take it on trust despite the fact that it had been so misrepresented. We were supposed to get a game-changer but we did not.

When the language of the Government requires forensic examination of all financial issues, trust will be in short supply. We have heard terms such as "core" and "headline" rates for social welfare, and they tell us that cuts are very well buried. The annual cost of servicing the debt now exceeds the total spend on all levels of education in this country, but that fact never features in the stock reply about how well the Government is doing, according to its press office. The press office must have provided a laminated card with that patter to every Minister and Government Deputy so they can come out with the same statement.

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