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

One of the most popular slogans chanted by the 200,000 people who took to the streets at the weekend was: "Enda Kenny in your ivory tower, this is called people power." As the Labour Party in the Seanad rebels against the Government over a referendum on Irish Water and as a crisis is gripping the Government in the face of a massive popular rebellion against the hated water tax, should the Government not be telling its European counterparts that it may not be in government the next time the European Council meets? That is because the people have finally lost patience with the cruel injustice of taking out €8 billion in interest on a debt that is not citizens' debt. It is being sucked out to pay off bondholders and financial institutions in Europe, while ordinary people are being crushed with water taxes, property taxes and all of the other austerity cuts and charges. In all seriousness, should the Minister of State not be telling his European counterparts that he may not be in government the next time the European Council meets because the people have had enough and are rising up against him?

It is the supreme irony that Ireland's new European Commissioner was the very Minister whose fingerprints were all over this shambles and fiasco that was Irish Water and the water charges. Does it not say everything about Governments in ivory towers that are utterly out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent that the Minister who was responsible for this debacle has been rewarded with the highest position we can give an Irish politician in the European bureaucracy? It is really beyond belief.

In some ways, is this not the answer to the questions European leaders have debated among themselves, namely, why is the European economy on its knees and why is investment down? Why are they panicking now about a lack of growth? The answer to that question is that we do not have the money to invest in the economy to generate real and sustainable economic growth here or elsewhere in Europe because we are being sucked dry by banks and financial institutions. They are sucking €8 billion out of the economy and the pockets of citizens.

Similarly, the European economy has been devastated by the cost of putting bankers, bondholders and financial institutions ahead of the needs of ordinary citizens and the need to invest in real economic activity to generate genuine and sustainable economic growth. Instead, the European Union, as well as the current and previous Governments here, have shoved the bubble economy and the corporate vulture economy down our throats for the past 25 years.

The Minister of State should take this message to his European counterparts. If they do not lay off and give us a break, he will be swept out of power by a movement of people power. It will not be too long before other governments in Europe face the same rebellion, unless they come out of their ivory towers and listen to the voices of the people.

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