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ENDA KENNY HAS revealed that he told Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras that some European leaders didn’t trust him prior to marathon talks on the debt-stricken country’s bailout deal earlier this week.
The Taoiseach has defended Ireland’s stance in negotiations on a third bailout for Greece in the face of criticism from opposition politicians that the government failed to stand in solidarity with the Greek people.
In an interview with the New Statesman magazine earlier this week, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis claimed that other indebted eurozone countries were “energetic enemies” of his government’s efforts to negotiate a better deal for Greece.
Speaking to Today with Seán O’Rourke, Kenny revealed the advice he gave to Tsipras: ”I actually spoke to prime minister Tsipras myself before the meeting started and I said to him:
‘Alexis, let me give you a piece of advice here, if I may. There are people around the table who don’t trust you.
‘You have got to show them that you’re serious about what you say here because you won’t build trust the way it’s been happening.
‘You’ve got to have a step-by-step demonstration and proof of your conviction and you’ve got to go back to your parliament.’
Kenny said that during its programme Ireland’s finance ministers had sought to build a relationship with the Troika and put forward alternative measures to those being proposed that would not tax work or create barriers to employment.
He rejected claims that Tsipras had been “thrown under the bus” by his fellow European leaders last weekend.
The Fine Gael leader said that Tsipras’ predecessor Antonis Samaras had overseen a primary budget surplus and one per cent economic growth.
“In the run up to the [last] election in Greece, which was triggered after the presidential election, the rise of populism brought about all of this instability.
There was a pattern of growth and a pattern movement in the right direction but Syriza came along and said: ‘You don’t have to pay for this, we’re going to re-employ all the people who’ve lost their jobs and everything.’
While consistently expressing his support for the Greece to stay in the euro and sympathy for its people, the Taoiseach bluntly opposed the idea of debt relief when asked about the matter during crisis talks on 25 June.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan also reportedly insisted that emergency ECB funding for Greece’s banks be reduced until it retracted demands for debt writedown. Noonan later told the Dáil his comments had been misrepresented.
The government has since insisted as recently as last week that it “fully and wholly supports radical debt re-profiling for Greece” as distinct from debt write off.
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Aodhan was asked on RTÉ radio if he would welcome such a centre in Clontarf where he lives. In a roundabout way the answer was no and he believes it is for other areas to deal with this.
@Michael McLoughlin:
Car break ins, assaults, drug dealing increase in areas adjacent to injection and methadone centres.
Send all drug users to a remote Island and give them as much drugs as they want.
They’ve opted out of society. We owe them nothing.
@m flynsk: is it not society doesn’t want them?plus your way of thinking and typing belongs in the Stone Age get a book and educate yourself,these people never got up one day and thought ahh hay I’ll be a heroine addict(all drug users) that you say could you explain that part a bit better because it makes you sound an uneducated Fool!
Put it beside your house then. Dublin 8 is already all of Dublin’s drug users dumping ground. Each community should be responsible for their own. We have enough centres, hostels, needle exchanges etc. All within a 10 minute walk of each other.
@Thomas Quinn: Problem is – the majority of people who use drugs are located in inner city areas, or at least frequent there. They are not out in great numbers in Sutton or Dundrum. I’d be happy with smaller sites dotted around the city but that’s probably not economical. It was supposed to be a pilot. DCC should have at least piloted it. If it worked -hooray. If it didn’t, halt it.
@Annie Citric: We have to move from Dublin 8 next year because it is so bad now already. Guardai do not stop or search anyone within a radius of these charity or government hostels/needle exhanges or drug clinics and with so many in the area that means dealers walk around with impunity. 5 guys deal openly opposite the late night centre and carry blades and bat’s intimidating people openly and St Patrick’s Park is filled with the walking dead. I have removed needles close by were my daughter plays. I have a solution for these centres. Prison. Lock them up and give them free heroin in supervision. If they want to get clean provide the support and weaning off service there too along with job support upon release. Enough is enough.
@Annie Citric: Unless you’ve done a census on IV drug users and their home addresses that’s a guess at best. There is a cohort of city centre dwelling addicts but there are a considerable amount who use their free passes on public transport to travel into the city centre each day because that’s where the “treatment” centres and homeless shelters are. Time to move them into the localities where these people actually come from instead of constantly drawing them into The D1/D2/D8 areas. Maybe then ordinary decent taxpaying workers can enjoy the city centre, and maybe the city will get a chance to become a more family friendly place, instead of something resembling a set from the walking dead.
@Annie Citric: The users travel to those places to get their drugs they are fro all over the country and for all backgrounds
@Annie Citric: how would you like to see an injection centre put on the doorstep of your children’s school, having to have the blinds closed because of the sightings they have to see day in and day out. That centre will only attract more dealers and more addicts. They need help to come off drugs not keeping them on it.
The failed labour minister backs another loser.
The city council listened to the local community and said NO.
Drug users bring crime, anti social behaviour and violence and to create a Walking dead zombie farm, where stoned, out of their heads, criminals can bring heroin, that they bought illegally with the proceeds of a criminal act and shoot up at the Tax payers expense. GET A GRIP.. It wouldn’t help on of them become clean.
Hopefully now D1 and D2 get cleaned up and the stoned Zombies destroing the city are removed.
Well done DCC and the Hug a thug brigade can go to hell
@Mark Mccormack: I lived around the corner from one in Brisbane and it was grand. There was never an issue. This has worked in other countries. A pilot scheme is worth a shot.
@Ned Flanders: live not too far from there myself. It does work, it works in Portugal, it works in the Netherlands. Addiction is a side effect of social isolation and a lack of purpose. These centres solve these root causes and the addiction fades in many cases. If we elevate the lowest in society we improve society.
Today’s goverment only approve popular decisions..vote hunting
Merchants Quay ( Franciscan Order) own a massive nursing home (Assisi House) on the Navan Rd beside the Papal Nuncio. Its where they keep there most prolific sex offender Ronald Bennet. That could be used as an injecting centre ? On all the bus routes and near the city centre.
@Jim Lahy: Grafton st is an excellent choice for the centre, Luas and plenty of buses there so addicts can travel hassle free for treatment.
@Niall O’Neill: Except for the people who use those very heavily used services and we have enough addicts of our own thanks all the same
Bit of a shame, that. Pity these poor souls couldn’t be given free drugs to be taken out of their misery and the dealers out of business.
An injecting centre??? Would it not make more sense to get people off drugs than offer them a legal place to take them?? It appears to me that injecting centres are the first step to make drug taking socially acceptable.
@Michael MC Evoy: I don’t think taking heroin is ever going to be accepted by society. It will never ever be gotten rid of either. The only thing that can be done is at least try and reduce the harm caused and save lives.
Why can these facilities not be placed in local existing hospitals throughout the city ? Taking new build units into the community is of course going to cause concern. These are drug addiction units and as such a hospital is the best place for them .
There remains a dire need to address & prevent the shooting up & user debris in public areas.
Surely there is a simpler way by fitting out mobile dispensary units to cater for 4 or 6 per session, so that there is no need to congregate all users to 1 place.
Am not impressed that these users are expected to purchase their own gear, thus continuing the criminal connection & influence. This gear not alone is illegal, but is potentially lethal.
Cannot the seized gear be quality & safety tested for use in such mobile units?
have your say