Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach referred to speculative comments. I will quote from the Financial Times, which stated: "Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble and Michael Noonan, his Irish counterpart, pushed for curbs on emergency liquidity for Greek banks unless capital controls were imposed, one of the officials said." Translated, that means: "Tighten the noose. Make them scream. Bring them to their knees. Humiliate them." I ask the Taoiseach to conform to what he said a couple of weeks ago, that is, answering questions fully and completely. Is that the position of the Irish Government? It is attempting to put pressure on the ECB, a supposedly independent institution, to squeeze the Greeks further in order to pressurise them into doing a deal which is not one they want to do.

I remind the Taoiseach of June 2012 when he and the then Tánaiste, like Chamberlain declaring, "Peace in our time", announced there had been a seismic shift and that we would get a deal on debt. That has since been quietly shelved and instead the Irish Government, along with Germany, has joined the chorus that there will be no debt write-offs. It is in the interests of working people, the majority in this country, that Greece gets a debt write-down and that we join with the Greeks and demand a debt write-down for all of the unsustainable debt. Why does the Taoiseach persist in backing the Angela Merkel pro-austerity line so he can get a few more pats on the head?

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