Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all those who contributed to the debate. In particular, I thank my colleagues in the Technical Group. We are often described as a disparate group, but this was one motion we all found easy to support.

The response of the Government in tabling the amendment was disappointing. The most breathtaking statement in the amendment is the line to the effect that the debt is sustainable and that it is possible to repay it. It is one thing to service a debt on which there is a productive return but most of what we are repaying is not typical national debt. Part of it relates to the banking collapse, while a major share of it relates to the crash in tax revenues from the construction sector, which had follow-on consequences in other sectors. It would be entirely different if we were paying back a debt incurred in building new water infrastructure, a public transport system to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, the cost of which is €8 billion per year, or undertaking a major house building programme to deliver security of tenure and affordable accommodation. However, there is no productive aspect to most of our debt.

Reference was made to the National Pensions Reserve Fund, although we had not included it in the motion. The fund was plundered, but the pensions time-bomb is still with us. With an ageing and a depleted population because of emigration, the problem is going to get worse.

In an article yesterday Fintan O'Toole referred to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan's explanation of why Ireland was not supporting Greek calls for the holding of a European debt resolution conference. The Minister said of Ireland's €214 billion debt: "Our debt is in a very good position now; it's affordable and it's repayable." O'Toole goes on to state:

There could hardly be a clearer message to our gallant allies in Europe. Keep your hands in your pockets. You'd only be insulting us if you offered us a dig-out.

Many of us can identify with this.

I seriously question the notion that our debt is on a downward trajectory. The world debt clock shows that we are paying in the region of €339 per second in interest. Therefore, in the five minutes I have to speak tonight we will have added €100,000 in interest to our debt. We are making repayments €7.5 billion to service the national debt, which is close to the entire education budget.

The Taoiseach said the water charges protests were about more than water. They are; they are about the cumulative effects of the big squeeze on incomes for a major proportion of citizens. Many believe they are worse off now than when the crisis began. People have put it to us that they have no reserves left and that, whereas they may have had a little money at the beginning, there have no reserves now. Some tell us that their incomes and outgoings are so finely tuned that something like Christmas, the car breaking down or the washing machine needing repairs can throw them into crisis. That shows how marginal the balance is. The Minister said the debt was sustainable and repayable in the names of the people struggling so badly, not only in the name of the Government.

The dynamic has shifted in Europe. What it was not possible to talk or think about six months ago is altogether possible now. It is not only in Greece where this debate should be held. Let us consider the debt problem throughout Europe. Italy has a 133% debt-to-GDP ratio; France, 93%; and Spain, 96%. Even Germany has a 75% ratio. Joschka Fischer, a former Vice Chancellor of Germany, writing in The Guardianover the weekend stated:

Nothing but growth will decide the future of the euro. Even Germany, the EU's biggest economy, faces an enormous need for infrastructure investment.

He went on to write: "The eurozone's cohesion and the success of its necessary structural reforms, and thus its very survival, now depend on whether it can overcome its growth deficit." He also stated:

Warnings of a severe political backlash went unheeded. Shadowed by Germany's deep-seated inflation taboo, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government stubbornly insisted that the pain of austerity was essential to economic recovery; the EU had little choice but to go along. Now, with Greece's voters having driven out their country's exhausted and corrupt elite in favour of a party that has vowed to end austerity, the backlash has arrived.

We had better start to pay attention to it. The debate may well be over for tonight in this Chamber, but it is only beginning throughout Europe.

See this speech in context