Call for audit may 'spread' to Ireland

Πηγή: Irish Times

FIONA GARTLAND

DEBT PROTEST: A CAMPAIGN calling for an audit of Greece’s public debt could spread to Ireland, the chairman of Irish justice group Afri has said.

Irish academics, writers and activists offered their support yesterday to the Greek campaign calling for an independent and international audit commission to examine the country’s debt.

Campaigners want to find out how the debt was incurred and what the money was spent on.

The campaign has garnered international support from notable figures including linguistics professor and writer Noam Chomsky, Indian economics professor CP Chandrashekhar and film-maker Ken Loach.

Politicians from Ecuador, where a similar audit in 2008 led its government to default on some of the country’s debt, have also lent their support to the campaign.

In Ireland, the campaign has also been supported by Afri.

The group’s chairman Andy Storey said that the call for a debt audit might be extended to Ireland.

“As in Greece, there is a lot of confusion about who owes what to whom, and why, especially when it comes to the bank debts guaranteed by the Irish government,” he said.

Mr Storey highlighted a repayment of €750 million made by State-owned Anglo Irish Bank this year to a creditor who was not covered by the bank guarantee.

A debt audit would answer questions about that payment, including who the creditor was, and why he had to be repaid from the public purse.

Afri patron and former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday said yesterday that in Greece, as elsewhere, ordinary people were being made to pay for the recklessness and greed of the banks through harsh austerity measures.

“It is time people stood up against the power of finance and put themselves back in charge of their own economies,” Mr Halliday said.