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

A new government has been elected in Greece on a platform of change. As I said, I respect the mandate it has received. Obviously, what is at issue is the nature of that change. When we were elected in 2011, we were committed to making changes and we did so. We negotiated the changes and I put forward the proposition in Europe that, as far as I was concerned, it was one piece of the negotiations, that there would be rolling negotiations over the lifetime of the Government. As late as last September, we were still negotiating changes and got our colleagues to agree to refinancing the IMF loans, for example. The Deputy should see it, therefore, as one piece of the negotiations and as part of a process over a period of time. That is the space I think the Greek authorities should move into, but I do not know what is in their minds. They have said contradictory things and as such, I am not quite sure where they stand. There is a major humanitarian crisis emerging in Greece as it runs out of money, as poor people get poorer and revenue falls off. In talking about four pillars of negotiation there is a humanitarian crisis issue for Greece which I would like to see addressed.