As a TD, Boyd Barrett, supported protests against cuts to Dublin Bus services, saying that "Some of the older and disabled people are literally prisoners in their homes now as a result of the cut or discontinuation of the service they previously relied on". In Dáil Éireann, he condemned the 2011 murder of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr as "an utterly brutal action, which leads back down a road which has failed". He drafted the text of the first Private Members' motion which suggests there is an "overwhelming democratic case" for putting the EU-IMF bank bailout to a referendum of the Irish people. He also committed to facilitating the nomination of Senator David Norris, for a place on the ballot paper ahead of the 2011 presidential election, and welcomed the release of Teresa Treacy, who was imprisoned for contempt of court over a land development dispute with the ESB and Eirgrid. Marie O'Halloran in "The Irish Times" described his "consistently passionate outrage and opposition to the Government's handling of the financial and banking crisis."