Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and his officials and concur with the sentiments expressed so far. Will he give us an update on his dealings with Bosnia? The committee visited the region last year and considerable concern was expressed to us about the lack of constitutional reform there. There is a significant level of inertia there and what looked like a country emerging now looks like a country regressing.

Regarding the impact of the single supervisory mechanism for banking and the direct recapitalisation of banks by the ESM, European Stability Mechanism, the Tánaiste stated it would be possible to deal with the legacy issue of Irish bank debt. Have there been any direct discussions with the ESM or other member states as to how this might materialise? Obviously, discussions to date have centred on the ESM investing in troubled banks from now on.

There has not been much discussion about legacy investment. Can the Tánaiste update us about that? I am not trying to back him into a corner. I accept that much of this will be done through the finance Ministers but could he give us a flavour of what the thinking around that area is?