Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----as an opportunity for investors to make money. However, this is a human crisis that lies at the heart of our economic problems. In his discussion with our European counterparts, is there any awareness on the Taoiseach's part that treating property as a matter for speculation, particularly the area of housing, is dangerous? Is he aware there are dangerous signs a property bubble could be beginning to emerge again in this State, fuelled by the policy of wanting to restore the banks' balance sheets and by the narrow concept of what banking is about? Even in America, the American Federal Bank has a wider mandate than the ECB to ensure that areas such as employment and keeping a roof over people's heads are considerations for banking policy. US banking policy is not a model one would want to follow, but even the US has some awareness that there must be a wider mandate.

On Ukraine, I agree the Russian invasion is unacceptable. The Russian empire has long been the prison house of small nations, particularly in the areas between Russia and Europe. I agree that carrying out referendums under the barrels of tanks and guns is not a legitimate manifestation of self-determination and should be condemned. However, I find it worrying in the extreme that the Taoiseach seems to be the most gung-ho on the European side in portraying this conflict as the bad guy Russians and the good guy Ukrainian Government with Europe backing it. The other of this equation is equally nasty. There is no doubt the former Ukrainian regime was rotten, corrupt, repressive, dictatorial and backed by a nasty regime in Russia under Mr. Putin was pretty vicious to its population. However, we have also had sight of supporters of one of the elements of the Ukrainian Government as out and out fascists - attacking TV presenters in Ukraine.

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