Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials. I wish to deal with two issues. The first is the cost of funds to our banking system at present. I also wish to hear about the Minister's strategy for the ultimate sale of the banks and how the cost of funds will play into that. The ECB is reducing the amount of funding it is providing to our pillar banks. There are many strategies one can use to sell a bank and many different forms of funding can be used. One can have direct funding from the European Central Bank, personal deposits, corporate deposits or wholesale markets. In any business model one tries to buy low and sell at a higher price, but we are doing the reverse of that at present. AIB lost €1 billion last year. Has the Minister had discussions with President Van Rompuy about trying to provide us with more funding directly from the European Central Bank as we move forward? We talk about trying to capitalise the bank through the ESM. That can be done in a less onerous way than going to the markets. AIB representatives appeared before this committee last week and said they have commenced negotiations with potential investors. However, if we go to the private markets to sell our shareholding in Bank of Ireland and AIB, we will require multi-strand forms of funding going forward. I have a preference for going to the ESM. The reason is that I believe there is a strong argument to be made for our banks to be predominantly funded through the European Central Bank. It would be a great deal cheaper and less onerous. Also, it would be a way of dealing ultimately with personal debt. What are the Minister's thoughts on that?