Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Government, and the previous Government, should have said this was not the debt of the Irish people. The resources that are burning our people to pay off these gambling speculators should go into job creation in the domestic economy. That is a real pathway out of the situation.

Interest payments on the national debt are about €9.2 billion this year, next year they will be €9.6 billion and the following year €10 billion. Against that ongoing contraction in the Irish economy, which is not made up for by the export sector because it is also having problems, does the Governor think that with such a catastrophic economic situation and level of debt, the sharks in the financial markets will have sufficient trust in the Irish Government to allow it to leave the grip of the troika and give it money in the normal fashion in which they operate? What does the Governor think are the realistic possibilities of the Irish Government exiting the troika programme at the end of this year?