Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The explanation of the Minister for Finance is that the country's debt is sustainable. The debate on whether this debt is sustainable will unfortunately be held by our grandchildren. Sustainability is also a moral issue. Is it sustainable for a country to pay debt while its people are dying on hospital trolleys? Is it sustainable that a person would suffer a lifelong debilitating paralysis due to having had a stroke while waiting an hour and a half for an ambulance because this State has diverted money away from that service? Is it sustainable for a third of a million people to emigrate over a very short time because money is diverted from investment into bondholders’ pockets? The State’s debt levels might be sustainable in the mind of the Ministers who earn six figure salaries, but not for the 164,844 people who are long-term unemployed in this State or languishing on the live register, the 34% of workers who earn less than €20,000 a year. If that is added to the 10% on the live register it shows 44% of the working population is on an income of less than €20,000 a year.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, referred to Syriza's election manifesto commitment to give food stamps to the poorest citizens to show the difference between Ireland and Greece. At one level the Minister is right, Ireland is different from Greece. If one includes personal debt Ireland’s debt is far higher than Greece's debt. That is the scary difference. On a day-to-day level we are not that different. In the run-up to Christmas 2,000 people in one day queued outside Dublin's Capuchin Day Centre for food parcels, the second highest turnout in the 40 years of that service. Hundreds of people, including children, queue for the breakfast and dinner in the Capuchin Centre. The latest CSO figures tell us the number of children living in consistent poverty has doubled between 2008 and 2013. Every day 135,000 children face material deprivation.

The fact that our three-month Treasury bill may have been at a zero rate a week ago is of little comfort to a family stuck in a hotel room because the State will not provide the necessary housing for a family. It is of little comfort to a family that goes to the local petrol station to fill a five gallon drum with kerosene because it cannot afford, on these freezing nights, to fill the oil tank at the back of its house. Ireland’s debt is not sustainable and to say so is reckless in respect of the needs of this country.

The moral case for debt write-down goes hand-in-hand with the economic one, and not just in Greece. EU leaders keep telling us that we have learned the lessons of the crisis yet the Minister and his Council counterparts refuse to grip the thorny issue of debt. Debt is the millstone around the neck of the people. It is the brake on growth. It is the primary reason for Europe’s current economic stagnation. Indebted families cannot put food on the table, indebted businesses cannot grow, and indebted governments cannot invest. Whichever way one looks at it, this Government is failing on both fronts, economically and morally.

Fine Gael and Labour also appear to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. It is amazing that Ireland, having suffered all that I have described is now part of the group preventing other countries seeking debt write-down. This despite having been abused and ignored at Ecofin meetings and having been fiscally water-boarded, as Yanis Varoufakis has said, by our so-called European allies. The Minister for Finance and this Cabinet are now rounding on Greece’s desire to seek a write-down for itself. Yanis Varoufakis has stated this is not only in the interests of Greece and the Greek people but also in those of other countries in a similar situation, such as Ireland. The Irish Government is a quisling regime imposing society-crushing diktats against the wishes of the Irish people.

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