Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is amazing how we can wander all over the world. One would think we were a powerful superpower in that we can welcome the International Criminal Court warrants for President Putin. There are horrible things going on there and it is a horrible war. However, we must also look at the Ukrainian President and other regimes' actions with their minority populations over the past. We will not see that at all, however. That cannot be mentioned in the narrative. We want to ignore Israel and what goes on there, the Iraq war and what happened there and everything else. We are very selective here. Then we have people stand up in this Chamber and attack Prime Minister Orbán. I met Mr. Orbán and know his regime. He has been elected now four times. Are we a democracy? Do we want to dictate to other democracies? Prime Minister Orbán is attacked here because of his policies. We want to run headlong into policies just to be ahead of everybody else and be great people. We attack Prime Minister Orbán, who has been duly elected to government by his people, for his policies. He has been returned four times in succession, which governments here have failed to do. It is a bit rich of us to lecture about what is going on there.

As regards how the European Central Bank, ECB, and the current financial trouble, the ECB has put up interest rates several times in the last six months and has not given any certainty that it will not do so again. It tells us this is to combat inflation. It is playing mind games with the people. We are near enough back where we were with the crisis in 2008, and we saw the help the ECB gave us then. I am not too sure it is ready, willing and able to help, as the American Federal Reserve did when it supported and looked after the creditors and people who had money invested in a bank there. European colleagues forced us to look after the senior bondholders, which had insurance policies.

Have we learned any lessons? Are we making our point known widely and loud and clear? No, we are not because we want to be the cheerleaders for Europe, the best boys in the class. We want proper meaningful support for people's finances and deposits, not for the bondholders and especially not the major bondholders. We are the best boys in the class and we want to criticise people as if we were a major superpower. As I said, we are welcoming the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants and ignoring everything else. We are ignoring what has gone on unabated in Ukraine since 2010.

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