madam president i am going to put this as simply as i can
irish taxpayers and eu taxpayers are being gouged in order to prop up the european banking system and the single currency
yesterday the house of commons in my country voted through a bilateral loans package to ireland which was supported i think by sincere and generous mps thinking that they were helping a friendly country
but you do not help an indebted friend by pressing more loans on him at a ruinous rate of interest
ireland has been ruined by the single currency
between nineteen ninety-eight and two thousand and seven it had real interest rates of <unk>
every irish economist could see the crash coming but there was nothing they could do about it because there were no longer any irish interest rates
there were no rates to be raised
now when the crash comes it is worsened by the inability to devalue
a nation is being condemned possibly to a generation of deflation debt and emigration so that we can keep this project of ours alive
instead of helping to bail out the euro in ireland we should be helping ireland to bail out of the euro and to re-establish its own currency possibly with a temporary link to sterling allowing it to pay off its loans and to re-establish itself as an independent and prosperous state
