supposed refusal of the ECB to agree a deal on the promissory notes

The general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Eugene McCartan, commenting on the supposed refusal of the ECB to agree a deal on the promissory notes, warned working people to be careful, as a false trail was being laid.

      This is the usual stance of an establishment attempting to give the impression that it is fighting the good fight on behalf of the people. It is a dance around the bones of our public services, with health, education and social services being stripped bare and starved of resources to pay a debt that is not the people’s. The government’s only request is that the debt should be paid over a longer period, not that it should be repudiated.

      The economic and political establishment—the internal Troika—have long since committed themselves to paying this odious debt, as their complete dependence on the European elite and their strategic self-interest require them to do. They will continue to use the debt crisis as as a stick with which to beat workers, in particular public-sector workers. Croke Park II will see a renewed assault on workers and on services provided to the public. Securing this agreement will herald renewed cuts in social welfare and pensions.

      He went on to say that there is no “good” or “bad” debt: the complete indebtedness of this state is the result of the application of neo-liberal policies over the last two decades, a political and economic strategy that has had the full support of the internal Troika of Fine Gael, the Labour Party, and Fianna Fáil.