Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials and wish the Minister well in his negotiations and discussions at ECOFIN. The Minister said in his concluding remarks that Ireland would focus on delivering in all respects on the commitments already agreed to by the Heads of State and Government, including those of 29 June. I assume we can take that as relating to our bank debt in particular. It is well recognised that there are two aspects to our bank debt, namely, the €30 billion associated with the promissory note and the €29 billion associated with our pillar bank investment. On the promissory note, there has been an expectation for some time that a technical paper would be produced setting out a mechanism by which some form of resolution would come about. In this regard, discussions since June have focused on trying to resolve the cost to the taxpayer of the investment that had to be made in our pillar banks.

May we take it that there is a continued effort to follow both streams of resolution, the promissory note and dealing with the pillar bank investment?