Where is Kenny’s Debt Write-Off?

People Before Profit are one of the sponsors of the protst to oppose the presence of the European People’s Party in Dublin. In a statement, People Before Profit Euro candidate for Dublin, Cllr. Brid Smith, said:

“A year ago, the government were saying that a deal was on the table to write off a considerable proportion of Ireland ‘s national debt.  Yet a year later not the slightest relief has been given. Kenny,however, wines and dines with his political ally, Angela Merkel, and does not utter a word of criticism.

“As a result we are paying over €9 billion in interest payments to unnamed bondholders – (the government won’t even reveal their names) –  instead of looking after people here? There are homes in this country which have no heat because their owners cannot afford it; there are food banks and soup kitchens; there is despair amongst youth who are being pressurised to emigrate. Yet we pay over billions to rich bloodsuckers!

‘Merkel and her right wing cronies in the European People’s Party told this government  – and the Fianna Fail- Green one before – that their duty is to rescue the European banking system. The huge banks in Germany, France and Britain pumped billions into the Irish banking system which then pushed loans on all and sundry to make fabulous profits. It was like a gigantic pyramid selling scam but the difference is that these gamblers had the backing of the political elite.

‘If a working class person lost a few hundred euro in a betting shop and asked for a state subsidy to bail out their losses, they would be laughed at. But when wealthy bondholders and bankers gamble billions – and lecture us that we live in a ‘risk society’ – they go to the taxpayer to bail out their losses.”