Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Okay. My point is that the fundamental engineering flaw and what one might call subsidence in the economy remains. Moreover, until those banking-originated losses are mutualised and relieved from our people, it is a sure thing, as the IMF has tentatively indicated, that we face ten years of galley slavery and that is wrong. Ireland has a small economy. Cyprus represents 0.2% of Europe's GDP, while Ireland represents approximately 1.8%, and it is wrong that 45% of Ireland's national income - forget GDP - is debt that has been lumped onto the people. We had better start this discussion afresh because the €31 billion has now been cemented in 40 years of formal national debt. As for the other €30 billion or so put in the two pillar banks, more is needed. This reason the banks have not been writing down loans to repayable and recoverable amounts is that the amount they got in two bites - that is, in March 2010 and March 2011 - was not enough. They were not honest. Moreover, the bigger firms in the establishment - be they investment banks, advisers, BlackRock Solutions, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG or whoever they were - failed us in the measurement of the scale of the problem. It was simple to calculate on the back of an envelope that four years of turbo-charged lending of €200 billion would lead to losses of approximately €100 billion. Anyone with any honest experience would know that.