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

We have substantially done our negotiations because we are no longer a programme country. I told the Greek Finance Minister that he should look at the way we resolved our problems when we were refused a write-down on the private debt element. We resolved our problems by getting very long extensions of the maturities of the official loans to Ireland. We got all the margins removed, relating to the moral persuasion issue and came down to very low interest rates on the debt. We negotiated a separate arrangement to replace the promissory note. That was before the Deputy won the by-election. We were obliged to pay €3.1 billion every March. That was going to go on for more than a decade, then diminishing amounts for another decade. We negotiated to reduce the burden of debt. Our debt peaked at 123% of GDP last year. It will be 109% at the end of this year.

I hope to break the 100% with the measures we are taking in the budget, which will be announced on 13 October for the end of 2016. If we are down to 100% or 99% at the end of 2016 and the eurozone average is 94.5%, we will be very near the average. That is not taking into account any sale of assets or bank shares or anything like that, or the adjustments which the Central Statistics Office, CSO, will make in early July when it takes new ways of calculating GDP into account. That, I believe, will run in a small way to our advantage as well. We negotiated.

I have no animus towards the Greek people. I like the Greek people. I get on reasonably well with the Greek Finance Minister but I would prefer if he did not interfere in Irish politics and start making noises of approval about Sinn Féin. I do not make noises of approval about his political opponents. That being said, he is a reasonable man to talk to and he is an interesting person. The issue is that he damages the balance sheet of every European country if he insists on the write-down of debt on a nominal basis. On the other hand, if he negotiates an extension on maturities and a lowering of interest rates, even though Greek interest rates are already very low on official debt, there is scope there. There is also scope on the primary surplus, which has already been conceded by the institutions. In these negotiations, to get something one has to give something. That is the way we approached it.