Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

That is patent nonsense. For 4 million people, €150 billion is a huge amount. However, there are approximately 400 million people in the European Union. On a European scale, €150 billion is equivalent to Ireland having a problem of €1.5 billion. The scale is 100:1.

The real preoccupation of Europe at the time was not with Ireland. Europe did not think the Irish problem was unmanageable. It was only a pimple on the nose of Europe. The Governor of the Central Bank and the Secretary General of the Department of Finance agreed with that thesis at the time, no matter what head-wagging Deputy Mathews does. The problem was that the EU was looking at Portugal and Spain. That was the real concern, and not the absolute amount of money involved in the Irish economy. That proves this is not just an Irish problem but a general European problem, in which many peripheral countries are involved and which are collectively of serious concern to the European Union.

I am disappointed the European Union has not taken a more pan-European approach to the issue and come up with pan-European solutions, rather than deal with it on a country-by-country basis. It has taken some pan-European decisions but I get the impression it does not have a pan-European plan.

This brings me to the favourite topic of Deputy Tóibín and his colleagues, which is default. The only way to consider default in bonds is by an ECB pan-European arrangement. There is no way Ireland could unilaterally default. First, we would not get the money to run the country on a day-to-day basis. Second, there are consequential issues, too numerous to go into here, that would have huge downsides for our economy. Therefore, these issues must be dealt with at a European level. A European-created problem needs a European solution. Until we understand that we will not make progress.

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