I am glad the Minister for Finance is in the Chamber. What we would like to have with him today is a quiet measured conversation about the issue I raise which concerns 370 workers at EBS Limited, now merged with Allied Irish Banks. These are very low-paid and middle-income workers. They are coal-face workers, not [...]
Video: Joe Higgins urges Minister Noonan to reverse decision not to honour EBS workers contract obligations
On December - 19 - 2011
Full Frontal Assault on Democratic Rights of Europeans as Markets dictate appointments in both Italy and Greece
On November - 22 - 2011
As recently as a year ago when I and others on the Left wrote and spoke about ‘the dictatorship of the financial markets’ many people thought we were exaggerating. However after the events of the past few weeks, can there be any doubt but that we are witnessing a full frontal assault on democratic rights [...]
Video: Joe Higgins challenges Taoiseach on job losses and hardship to families over closure of Barracks
On November - 15 - 2011
Did the Cabinet decide today to close down army barracks in Clonmel, Mullingar, Castlebar and Cavan? What is the rationale for this proposal when there are no savings to the State? For the 600 soldiers and their families, most of whom are workers in uniform as ordinary rank and file members, this will be an [...]
Video: Joe Higgins TD questions the Tanaiste on the illegal detention of Flotilla activists
On November - 10 - 2011
Last Friday, a foreign state, Israel, jailed 14 Irish citizens who were snatched from international waters while bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has not uttered a single word of protest in public in response to this outrage. This morning, by agreement with the Irish embassy in [...]
Latest EU Summit Leaders deal will not prevent a further deepening of the crisis
On November - 3 - 2011
And so we have the outcome of yet another European Union Leaders’ Summit that took place Wednesday in Brussels. And yet again we have a new ‘ final’ solution – like the last ‘final’ solution and the one before. The financial markets – the major European bankers and speculators who have been holding the people [...]
Video: Joe Higgins questions Taoiseach on Keane Report, which he describes as a banker’s charter written by bankers
On October - 20 - 2011
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders? These mortgage holders, the majority of whom are ordinary [...]
Video: Joe Higgins asks Taoiseach why he will not write-down mortgages to their current value
On October - 12 - 2011
The extensive leaks from the report of the Keane group on distressed mortgages will be greeted with bitter disappointment by the 95,000 homeowners in mortgage difficulties, of whom 40,000 or more are in arrears of more than six months. While there may be a few speculators among these, the vast majority are victims of the [...]
