Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to return to the question first raised by Deputy Donnelly with regard to ECB policy generally. I welcome that the Minister has raised the issue of quantitative easing. According to one of the other tables included in the documentation, growth in Europe is running at half of what it is in the United States. Last week there was commentary from the ECB in which it accepted that we were not engaged in monetary financing, but there is a sense that in comparison to the Fed it is terrified of quantitative easing and any form of monetary financing. Is there adequate debate on whether the ECB is fit for purpose, bearing in mind that Europe consistently lags behind the United States when it comes to quantitative easing? Is it an area we should push harder? We got a slight glance from the ECB, but ideologically Europe is terrified of quantitative easing. Year on year the United States gets away with it and consequently has significantly lower unemployment and higher growth than we do in Europe.