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

What is it about Presidents and ex-Presidents of the United States that so mesmerises establishment politicians in Ireland? Are they drawn to the aura of power or former power, the fact that the people concerned were and the incumbents are in charge of the biggest imperial power on earth? It is something about which I always wonder. When the Taoiseach takes advice from President Clinton, I ask him to be careful, particularly with regard to economic advice, considering that for eight years he presided over the policies of extreme liberalisation of the financial markets, the casino economy and the privatisation and liberalisation that took place which, among others policies, laid the basis for the disaster which became the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the Freddie Macs and Fannie Maes which crashed the economy with disastrous consequences for the working class people of the United States and the world. I ask the Taoiseach to be cautious when he takes an apparently uncritical approach to President Clinton.

With regard to Northern Ireland and discussing issues of civil and human rights in which President Clinton supposedly took an interest, did the Taoiseach speak to him about similar issues in the United States, particularly about Irish America and how the establishment there treats the gay and lesbian community in banning it from marching on St. Patrick's Day in New York and Boston? Did the Taoiseach discuss whether he should boycott either of these marches in the event that he has been invited to them? The Minister for Social Protection who seems to be part of his protection detail today as far as Dáil duties are concerned has apparently taken such a position. Will the Taoiseach do the same or will he go along with the homophobic disgraceful approach taken by some of the conservative Irish-American institutions?

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