Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)

The Government volunteered the services of the Department of Finance to cost any such proposals but the Opposition will not produce any. The cheap seats are always the easiest seats and those who say they do not want to do this or that are seated in them. We want to fix the deficit, however. We have listened to suggestions that we take the Bolivian or Argentinian route, which would mean placing screens over every ATM and padlocks on the doors of the banks and seizing everyone's assets. We could then have a great Marxist-Leninist state and pretend there was no crisis.

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