Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

Will the Minister confirm if it is true that he insisted that emergency funding and financial support for Greece would be reduced unless it retracted its demands for a sustainable debt write-down?

Is that true? Was the Minister on the side of the Germans in demanding that Greece not get a deal? Is the Minister aware there has been a 35% increase in suicides since 2010, directly linked to the ongoing austerity programme imposed on the people of Greece? The impression that he and other Ministers and Deputies speaking on the matter would like to give is that the Greeks have not done enough and have not brought in reforms. Ongoing IMF and troika austerity regimes have been imposed, which have led to a situation in which domestic violence has increased by 47% and 35% of people now live below the poverty line. The Minister is asking the Greek Government to foist even more so-called structural reforms on the ordinary working people and the unemployed of Greece.

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