Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

In a Chamber noted for its brass necks, tonight's performance almost beat all. To have to listen to Deputy Spring, who is a former Anglo Irish Bank employee and who contested an election on a programme of Labour's way or Frankfurt's way, ridicule this motion takes some beating. This individual bragged about the Greek economy being on its knees and somehow thought that was something to crow about to his friends in PASOK but I can tell him there is nobody in Ireland who takes comfort from the situation in the Greek economy. We stand in solidarity with the ordinary people of Europe, whether in Greece or in Iceland, when they stand up and say "enough".

We have had correspondence from citizens all over the country in recent weeks about this motion. I want to put on the record some points made by one of those people because this young man, a 27 year old physiotherapist from Cork, actually sums up many of the issues about which we are talking. He told the story of how he treated an 84 year old lady who was very weak and tearful after her night in hospital earlier this year. She had spent a cold night on a trolley near the main door in Cork University Hospital and she asked why was this happening to her after everything she had contributed to this country. He said there were three wards on the fifth floor which were unopened due to staff and budgetary constraints and that accident and emergency nurses were run ragged with all the trolleys. He said this was not bad hospital management, that the rehab hospital was also full and that there were many patients waiting for eight weeks to go to nursing homes because of the cuts in home help hours. He said the issue was one of resources.

This young man went on to say he had worked in the NHS in Britain and in New Zealand and he felt working in Ireland was like working in a Third World country. He explained these issues to the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, who he said was trying hard but was missing the bigger picture. He posed a question to all of us, which I want to pose again. He spoke about our motion tonight and said we had the chance to do something about this situation for him and that we had the opportunity to decide on which side we stand. He asked whether we stand with the bankers or with the people of Ireland. That is, in essence, what we are debating.

Last night, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy O'Dowd, when speaking against the motion said we follow through on our commitments and that this is the message we want to deliver to the international community. What commitments and to whom? What message do we want to deliver to the international community? Is it that it can hit us with whatever it likes and we will bend even lower and take it? That is not a message I want to deliver. That is not our commitment nor is it that of the people of Ballyhay, the student nurses, the 100,000 young people who are now in Australia, the 400,000 people who are still out of work, the secondary school teachers, the children with special needs, the survivors symphysiotomy and all of the other people who have been shafted by this debt deal. It is not a message people want to deliver.

There are currently 32 unemployed people for every job in this State. What this side of the House is saying is that we should halt the payment of taxpayers' money to dead banks, banks which are not lending to small and medium businesses, the biggest employer in the country-----

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