Ireland isn’t paying 13 billion a year to pay public sector salaries and government services. It’s borrowing that money to pay the almost 10 billion euro interest bail attendant on bailing out the bankrupt banks. At the end of 2007 the Auditor and Comptroller General gave a figure of 1.4 billion to service the national debt. The IMF estimate this year’s interest bill to be 9.3 billion. The state will pay 50 billion euro over the next five years in interest along. 85% of that bill solely attributable to the decisions made 2008-2010 to try to save European banking at the expense of the Irish people and Irish society.The state is bankrupt because it bailed out bankrupt banks instead of letting them go to the wall. It is NOT bankrupt because of public sector pay or funding essential public services.
The deficit is a consequence of bailout of the banks NOT of paying decent salaries to public servants and providing half-decent public services.
‘Reasonable’ ‘pragmatists’ have brought this country and Europe to the brink and look like they’d rather destroy the notion of a decent society in order to save criminal banks. The ‘militants’ are our only hope at the moment.