Mr. Seán Whelan:

With regard to the eurozone crisis coming back to haunt us, the effects of that crisis will remain with us for many decades because of the cost of bailing out the banks. How it affects the politics of the country depends on how we, and particularly politicians, react to the aftermath of the crisis and our approach to dealing with that aftermath. We could have a situation in which the country becomes rapidly eurosceptic, with the perception that Europe is something that is done to people, not something they invent as part of their daily lives. If that gains traction here, we will see a growing negative attitude towards the European Union. On the other hand, we could treat the crisis as an opportunity and a chance to get things done here and change the way we deal with the European Union and with our own internal issues. We could try to look for a benign outcome whereby people come to see the crisis as a useful turning point, albeit an expensive and painful one, out of which came something useful and beneficial to the country in terms of governance and the way things are run, not just at national political level but at all levels of society here, including in private businesses.

Undoubtedly, there will be a residue from this eurozone crisis and it will continue to exist for many decades, in the same way that the 1930s economic crisis has left a long-lasting residue, one that exists to this day in terms of policies and policymaking in society.

Deputy Durkan made a point about the crisis affecting all states and that it was not only us and our electoral system that might have been a problem. That is true, it affected all states. What has become known as the euro crisis has, to a greater or lesser extent, affected the 17 countries that use the euro. The recession that followed from the credit crisis of 2007 has affected virtually every country in the western world. However, I challenge the committee members to look around and find me another country that has had a bank bust which cost 40% of GDP. They will not find one because such a country does not exist anywhere outside of Ireland. That was a problem that was allowed to blow up here because credit growth was running at 30% a year in an economy growing at 8%. That was a red light flashing that should have been picked up within our system but it was not, and that is our problem.