Siptu: Troika ‘bagmen for EU banks’

Siptu leader Jack O’Connor has launched a scathing attack on the troika, calling its members “bagmen for the big European banks”.

Members of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions met representatives of the EU/IMF/ECB group in Dublin on Monday, during which the trade union delegation claimed austerity was not working and that it had led to 15% unemployment.

Ictu general secretary David Begg said at the meeting that unions had advanced a costed investment plan that could create 100,000 jobs over three years and that if the troika found fault with that, it was “incumbent on them to put alternatives on the table”.