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

That goes on unhindered under the Taoiseach's rule, yet he speaks about partnership. Are the house-building firms and banks that saddled a generation of young working people with 40-year mortgages and unsustainable levels of repayment to finance the profiteering that went on during the bubble now their partners?

The Taoiseach will remember that so-called partnership was begun by no less a personage than the late Deputy C.J. Haughey in 1987, in reality to co-opt the leaders of the unions into trying to head off a movement of huge social protest against the cuts then being imposed. Savage cuts were being implemented and thousands of hospital beds were being closed It was the 1980s version of austerity. Is it not the truth that while the concept of so-called partnership was embraced as long as it was useful to the Government and employers, when the ship crashed on the rocks of the profiteering and speculation of the property bubble, the trade union leaders who had become far too cosy inside the tent were unceremoniously booted out in the cold? They have been in hiding for the most part since then. Partnership means that workers and working-class people were left with a bill of €64 billion while their partners went off to enjoy the huge resources they had salted away. Then the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements were brought in to continue and to implement the austerity by which working people were paying for this.

Is it not the case that the Government continues to represent the elites in our society in the financial markets through, for example, the access they have to the clearing house and to the IFSC? What working people need now is a fully independent movement to overthrow this vicious austerity and get the wealth that is there into investment, job creation and so on. We need an entirely different and independent situation. Then perhaps we can talk about real social solidarity.

See this speech in context