As Ireland prepares to pass a parliamentary vote on its cost-cutting budget, MEP Joe Higgins says the burden the Irish people are shouldering is “outrageous,” and the “annihilation” of the current government is inevitable.

“The Irish government has just put through the most savage cuts in the living standards of working people, the unemployed, and the poor in our society,” said Higgins, a member of the Socialist Party. “And that is being done at the behest of the speculators in the financial markets who made tens of billions of euros and very bad gambling debts in the Irish property market over the last 15 years.”

As Ireland faces the most severe welfare cuts and tax hikes in its history – a price it is paying for its 85 billion euro ($113 billion) rescue package – Higgins warns that the opposition movement is gaining momentum.

“I predict that after this budget [is passed], the opposition and the people power opposed to it will intensify,” said Higgins.

“There will be a general election in the month of February, the present government will be absolutely annihilated in that election, which tells you that they have absolutely no authority or mandate for what they are doing,” he declared.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Parliament building on Tuesday to protest what Richard Boyd Barrett from the People Before Profit Alliance calls “a conscious decision to protect the wealthy and to attack the needy.”

“I would anticipate that the anger among the public is going to build up very substantially over the coming days and weeks,” Barett said