Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Healy, Clare Daly and Wallace.

As was said by others, much has happened since December, not least the weekend election in Greece which is part of a trend throughout Europe. Calls for a European debt conference ought to be heeded by this Government. Looking back, it is difficult to believe that the last time such an international conference of creditors took place was the London debt agreement of 1953. I have made this point in the Chamber on several occasions. That agreement reduced Germany's external debt by about 50%. The IMF has essentially controlled international debt since then and, as such, the kind of progressive thinking which saw the value in allowing Germany to thrive economically by freezing its huge debts from a combination of the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazi era and the post-World War II debts has vanished. We need to retain that vision for the good of the Continent as a whole. It is an historical irony that the biggest beneficiary of debt forgiveness now leads the charge against easing the debt burden of several of the original creditors, namely, Greece, Spain and, indeed, Ireland.

The Taoiseach has on numerous occasions come into this House and said we cannot have defaulter marked across us as it will ruin us for all time. Germany was one of the biggest defaulters and it is now the powerhouse of Europe. That should tell us something. It is not just about what happened in Greece. The German debt campaigner, Jürgen Kaiser, noted that few sovereign debt restructurings have so clearly marked the transition from critical indebtedness to a situation where debt is no longer an obstacle to economic and social development and that the agreement remains one of the few historical examples of how circumspect and sustainable a debt workout can be, if the political will exists.

However, the political will has been absent. The one dimensional thinking has forced the populations to rethink the political direction of Europe. We saw an example of that at the weekend in Greece, and I hope we will see more of it, but our Government must sit up and take note of that change in direction because we should be an ally of those who are calling for that debt conference. I hope that will be taken up in a future setting, if not the next Council meeting.

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