Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the members of the council.

I have a few short questions. First, how much is the bank guarantee worth to the State? What is the figure? They made reference to it. If the bank guarantee was effectively to be withdrawn, what level of tax revenues would the Exchequer forsake per annum? Professor McHale states there is an implicit guarantee regardless of whether there is a direct guarantee in place. If the bank guarantee was to be removed, would he expect Ireland's cost of borrowing externally to reduce? Would it have an impact on our cost of borrowing?

Second, on the question of the impact on the economy of the austerity in terms of the level of cuts, the council stated it wants to see €1.9 billion of extra adjustments up to 2015, above what is planned at present. What is the council's view on pushing it out, say, for another two years or whatever, and making the corrections over a longer period? Would that have a positive impact? We have not spoken about the domestic economy. The export economy and the multinational sector is doing well. The domestic economy is where the long-term unemployed are. The domestic economy is a matter that needs to be addressed.

Finally, throughout its report, the council makes reference to debt sustainability and creditworthiness remaining fragile. It comes up everywhere in the report. Dr. Donovan made reference to the IMF viewing a figure of €24 billion in debt write-off in terms of the banks. What do they perceive - they may not want to go there - is the requirement for our debt to be sustainable and what do we need to get? How do they view the pronouncements of the German, Finnish and Dutch Finance Ministers in the past couple of days in that regard, linking into the ESM and the issue of banking debt? When one looks at it, the €64 billion of bank debt is a significant burden for any economy, particularly a small economy like Ireland, to be carrying on its back.

Those are specific issues: the bank guarantee; pushing out the number of years; the impact on the domestic economy; and debt sustainability and what the council would like to see in any bank renegotiation, in terms of the split of the sovereign versus banking debt and in the context of what the three Finance Ministers stated two or three days ago.