Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State, who is not in the Chamber, on his speech. It was one of those rare occasions where a Minister of State was not reading from a script. He spoke very eloquently but when he started getting into his stride I wished he had his script back again. I am very tired of Ministers and Government spokespersons continually telling us how pleased they are in Europe with our performance. It is insulting to the House and to the people of the nation. I am tired of them telling us how they go around the capitals of Europe, from Berlin to Paris, getting patted on the back for achieving so much in the Irish economy. They have done very well by those standards. The questions they should be asking is how they have done by the standards of the people on the ground. They should not be captured by European congratulations on what is going on in the economy.

I do not know the answer to whether the Government has done the right thing on the credit line. I do not know because we have not been told the possible terms of the credit line. The judgment can only be made on the basis of what, if anything, was offered. There is now some doubt about whether anything was offered. Maybe European leaders, to whom we bow and scrape with such fervour and who congratulate us on what we have done, said we could not have a credit line, not because we did not deserve it but because they want it to be a case of Ireland coming out of its debts and a programme having worked. A credit line would put some doubt on that.

The first question for the Minister of State is whether anything was on offer. If something was on offer, let us hear the terms. If a credit line was offered for nothing, no doubt we would have taken it. If it was offered cheaply, we would have taken it. When the Technical Group met the troika, we heard that a credit line would cost money and that there would be a fat fee although they would not specify the amount. If it was a €10 billion credit line, the fee would run to hundreds of millions of euro.

One of the reasons put out for not taking it was that we have money in the bag in the NTMA. It is not free money; it is pre-funding, which is a credit line. The last estimate I received was that €20 billion costs €2.2 million per €1 billion per month. That amounts to nearly €500 million a year. They borrow it at one rate and put it on deposit at a lower rate. It is losing money every day at a differential rate of 2.7%. That is what it is costing us and a credit line is a luxury. If we were so secure, we would not need the money that is costing us so much interest. Instead, we could go to the bond markets in January and borrow it. It is a precautionary credit line in itself.

I am doubtful of the wisdom of even considering a credit line in that position. As I stated, I am not aware of the terms.

We should be very careful about being overly confident. There is an element of theatre and macho politics in this. There is a growing consensus that maybe this decision was taken for political reasons. The decision was taken because we and the German, French and European powers in the European Central Bank and the Commission did not want this credit line being debated in the Bundestag, as it would have to be. The inference of that would be that these guys are claiming sovereignty while simultaneously the minor matter of a credit line is being decided in every parliament in Europe. If we do not have it, we can claim - quite wrongly - the restoration of our economic sovereignty. As Deputy Collins quite rightly noted, we are simply moving from one group dictating terms to us to another group in the form of the bond markets, which will dictate terms that are just as strict as those dictated by the troika in the past.

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