The Political Establishment have Collective Amnesia on our ECB bail out refund - Tóibín
Today Aontú leader TD Peadar Toibin called on the government to demand a reimbursement or at least partial reimbursement of the cost of Ireland's bank bail-out.
"The Ghost of Christmas past is haunting the streets of Leo Varadlkar's Ireland. The country seems to have suffered collective amnesia over the EU's refusal to deal with Ireland's banking debt. Yet 4,000 Children are homeless this Christmas.
"This Christmas thousands of families are homeless, but we owe €41.7 billion to cover bank bondholders due to a bank bail-out whose core principles have been rejected by the EU when it brought in the Single Resolution Mechanism.
Deputy Tóibín added that what was good enough for citizens other EU Member States didn't appear to be good enough for Irish citizens and accused the government of allowing Ireland to be used as an international guinea pig.
"Children in Europe don't sleep homeless because other EU Member States were allowed a "bail-in" to deal with their baking crisis. In Ireland due to the government's weakness we were forced to "bail-out" the banks by the EU. In other words in Europe in general the bond-holders took on most of their banking collapse as it should be. But, in Ireland citizens took on most of the cost of the banking disaster.
"We were treated completely differently. We were used as a bulwark against the collapse of the European banking system. Ireland carried 42% of the banking debt despite Ireland being only 1% of the population of the EU.
"The consequent slavish adherence to discredited austerity on capital spending is a direct cause of our inability to house our children. The EU turned Ireland into an economic laboratory and our children are suffering. Will the government continue to let them get away with this?"
