Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is the backstop we spoke about earlier. The fund will be built up over a ten-year period. Certainly in the meantime and maybe indefinitely we will need the European Stability Mechanism to act as a backstop to prevent any shortfalls from a series of burst banks across Europe coming back to hit European tax payers. We will go the ESM route as a backstop. That is the policy but it is not all firmed up yet and that is one of the key discussions we will have on Friday.