Mandate Trade Union says members angry at debt deal

Saturday 9 February 2013

Mandate Trade Union said thousands of their members around the country marched alongside 110,000 Irish protesters today in opposition to the burden of debt that has been placed on the Irish citizens.

The Union said they had protesters at all six locations around Ireland and that many of their members are extremely angry about the promissory note deal arranged by the Irish government this week.

“Mandate has taken the position that any deal with the ECB should include a significant write down in debt, particularly considering this was never the debt of the Irish people in the first place,” said John Douglas, Mandate General Secretary.??”The deal this week does not achieve a reduction in the principal debt that will be paid to bondholders. This time last week the Irish people owed €28 billion and they still owe it this week so as far as we’re concerned, very little has changed.
“The fact is, it will just be paid over a longer period of time and will result in our children and grandchildren being saddled with a debt that was never ours in the first place.”
The banking crisis in Europe has so far cost the Irish people €9,000 per person, while the average across the EU is €192. Ireland has borne 42.6% of the total net costs of the European bank debt crisis and this is simply unfair and unsustainable said Mr Douglas.

“The legacy debt issue is also far from satisfactory for our members, many of whom have very young children who will be in their thirties and forties when the actual principal repayment of the debt starts to be paid back.

“How are future generations going to look back on us when they realize they are paying billions of Euros to very wealthy bondholders who speculated and lost, but didn’t lose a penny from their gambles?”

Speaking at the Limerick protest, Mandate member and retail worker Doreen Curley said, “I work in a supermarket and can see in people’s eyes the difficulty they have in working to the tightest of budgets in order to feed their families.

“I have three children of my own. My eldest is out of school now and out of work.

“We need a deal on bank debt. A real deal not the moving of the deckchairs that happened this week.”