Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Donald Trump is on a wrecking mission, that is obvious, although I would caution against allowing his administration to bully us. The reason they have to make America great again is the American economy has declined massively. It used to have 40% GDP, which then went down to 20% by 2014 and it is now down to 15%. The American empire is in decline and Donald Trump personifies that decline. He is trying to reassert global hegemony by bullying people and we should not be bullied. Most of the multinationals here are here because they make a lot of money and they are not going to run away and leave those profits behind.

Having said that, the key thing is we have to diversify our economy. We are too vulnerable, not just to Americans but to a small number of flipping oligarchs - I do not care what country they are from - including a tiny number of the Elon Musks of this world and their equivalents in multinationals. That is the problem. We need to diversify our economy and we need to tax these people more. The Minister says expand the tax base by carbon taxes; I say wealth taxes, financial transaction taxes and taxes on wealth and capital so that these people do not control our fate.

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