OPPOSITION PARTIES HAVE condemned the €85 billion bailout deal reached by the Irish government and EU-IMF over the weekend, which includes an average interest rate of 5.8 per cent.
Concerns are now growing that displeased opposition parties may now choose to vote against the 7 December budget, reports the Irish Times.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Richard Burton said:
The EU in particular is looking at Ireland like a prodigal son who must be got into line. It is displaying very narrow thinking in shielding bond holders from exposure to costs and taking a penal approach to the cost of money. If Europe sets a cliff too steep for Ireland to scale it won’t solve its own problems, no more than Ireland’s.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said that European negotiators had refused to consider the option of Ireland defaulting.
Meanwhile, last night the Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore said that the deal was a “national sell out”, which would cripple the country:
The EU and the IMF have had a walk-over in negotiations with a broken and demoralised government… The Fianna Fáil government has shown no backbone, no negotiating ability and no authority.
Meanwhile, Labour’s Joan Burton spoke on RTE’s Six One News last night, saying that it was all about “the banks, the banks, the banks” and adding: “We are being asked to put up front … all the assets we have as a country. The trap has closed on Ireland… “We are banjaxed”.
Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan said it was difficult to image how it could be worse, saying:
The fact that the EU and ECB have asked us to bail out foreign bond investors who invested foolishly in our banks, with the pension fund money accumulated with difficulty over many years, should have been used as a powerful bargaining chip. It clearly was not.
Noonan called the final agreement “hugely disappointing”, and said that the government had failed on three points:
The government’s plan to draw on €17.5 billion worth of funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund has also been sharply criticised by Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said “The decision to force the state to take €17.5 billion out of the National Pension Reserve Fund to pour into the black hole that is our banking system is a disaster”.
Opposition leaders also criticised the fact that the interest on Ireland’s loans is higher than the rate offered to Greece. The Greek bailout included interest of 5 per cent (compared to Ireland’s 5.8 per cent) – although Greece originally agreed to pay back the loan in a much shorter time-frame (three years, compared with Ireland’s 10).
Recently, however, reports have suggested that the IMF and EU may extend Greece’s repayment period to 11 years.
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