Irish workers held a vigil outside the Dail yesterday in protest at the supposed ending of the country’s bailout and regaining of national sovereignty.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny gave a state of the nation address yesterday hailing a new era in the country which has struggled through three years of austerity to hit the bailout targets demanded by the troika of international lenders — the EU, IMF and European Central Bank.

Ireland received the last of its €85 billion (£72bn) loan on Friday and Mr Kenny declared that the country was formally standing back on its own two feet yesterday.

But the Communist Party of Ireland said the claim was “as far from the truth as one can get,” arguing that the Irish Establishment had long abandoned what little sovereignty the state ever had.

“The Maastricht, Nice and Lisbon treaties copperfastened the straitjacket on the democracy and independence of Ireland, and the current talks on banking union are for tightening the straps even further,” it said.

The party said the same class forces remained in charge of Ireland’s economy, with the “abject acquiescence of the internal political troika Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour.”

It said the debt — 125 per cent of GDP — was “unpayable.”

“The scale of the debt can only result in the constant and permanent imposition of austerity, affecting the lives of this and future generations.”

The party said “repudiation of this odious anti-people debt” was the first step to real and meaningful sovereignty.