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SIPTU: Troika is sabotaging Ireland

Thursday, October 25 10:28:55

SIPTU General President, Jack O'Connor has accused the EU/ECB/IMF Troika of sabotaging Ireland's chances of recovering from the economic crisis.

The Department of Finance will later today deliver the eighth periodic evaluation of how well Ireland is adhering to the bailout programme.

"They are insisting on sticking to a strategy that has failed spectacularly in Ireland and across Europe piling misery on working people and their families. This is bad enough but they are also sabotaging anything the Government might usefully do in the very limited space available to them to stimulate the domestic economy and create jobs," he said.

"This is very clearly evident from the way in which they rubbished well researched and costed proposals for a E9bn infrastructural development programme over the next three to four years".

Jack O'Connor described a letter issued on 17th October to Congress general secretary, David Begg, by the Head of the EU Commission section of the Troika as "the most cynical he had every read".

"It simply listed the usual standard neo-liberal text book arguments to rubbish the idea without actually addressing the proposals at all. It then went on to cite 'valid public health reasons' for welcoming the decline in alcohol and tobacco sales. This deliberately ignored the fact that this decline was due to 100,000 people losing their jobs and 160,000 leaving the country since 2010 as a direct result of the policies being imposed by the Troika."

"The Troika's concern for the public health doesn't extend to recognising the implications of children being sent to bed hungry again in Ireland or families breaking up as a result of the kind irrational policies it is dictating."

"Of course they are quite consistent with remarks attributed to the same Head of the EU Commission team in the public media on the 12th October to the effect that the rich were contributing too much to the fiscal adjustment and that it should be spread more evenly - in other words that the poor should subsidise the wealthy even further," Jack O'Connor said.