Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Colm McCarthy and Professor Frank Barry are welcome to the committee and I thank them for coming in. I listened with interest to the witnesses discuss the reasons bailouts should work, which is to return distressed countries to creditworthiness in order that they can enter private markets, and I agree with them on that. It is a simple analysis. Professor Frank Barry said that economists are a forward-looking people, and I agree with him on that, but so are business people. I come from the world of business, and I am viewing this in a simplistic way as he has profiled it. I disagree with his analysis of reprofiling debt and pushing it out over many years into the future. The debt is still there as a percentage of GDP and people lending money are not silly. They carry out due diligence and realise what is at play. If one pushes debt out a long period into the future, it means one has not crystallised the loss. One may crystallise it when it can be afforded but it has not been crystallised immediately. In essence, that allows a country or business that is in debt to have a cashflow, which is what keeps everything afloat. Reference is often made as to who the wealthiest person in Dublin is today, and it is the person who has the handle on the most liquid cash. It is not the person who has the most assets because a person may not be able to dispose of them.

What do the witnesses consider is the value of honest engagement? People in business trade a great deal with people they trust. So much can be put down on paper but from the financial meltdown we have had, and we have had more experience of it than most, I have noted that it is the people one trusted and worked with who are the ones that have brought us through it. Any new customers we were getting in during that distressed period were coming from a distressed situation and one was very cautious to move in because one could be exposing oneself when one did not need more exposure. With Greece, it comes down to what is its honest engagement here and what is the general compliance. We are all meant to be a European community working together. We cannot say it is terrible and this is a case of the large countries versus the smaller countries when we expect everyone to engage honestly.

I read Mr. Colm McCarthy's article in the Irish Farmers' Journal last week in which he said something which he mentioned briefly in his presentation, and he can correct me if I am wrong, that the money that has already been lent is lost. If we were to agree with him that this money is gone, would we not be not daft if we did not ensure the taxpayers' money that is going to this new €80 billion plus bailout is secure? I cannot stand over money going into a black pit again. The mistakes of the past have been made but we cannot endorse new mistakes. There is a simple concept in business: one borrows money, one makes decisions and if one makes bad decisions, one suffers. However, the minute one runs out of cashflow or out money that has been agreed with one's lending institutions, one has lost control of one's business. Until one figures out a way to get that cashflow back, one has lost control. Essentially, Greece has done that; it has lost control. It finds itself in a desperate position and it needs to work extra hard to ensure it gets itself quickly back to a position where it can borrow again.

As Professor Frank Barry said, the euro was a political venture. Europeans have embraced the euro. He and I will have met many people who would say it is great that we can buy items in other countries where we know the cost and the exchange rate. I have bought many machines and other items I needed for business in the eurozone and the transactions were transparent in terms of currency. I remember when two of us travelled to France in the early 1990s and when we exchanged £50 or £60 in traveller's cheques, we got different amounts in the local currency. It was a joke and we were being ripped off left, right and centre. We should not forget the bad days. The reason politicians sought to introduce a common currency was that there was a demand for it, and I believe it is worth fighting for despite all its frailties.

There were many reasons for the foundation of the European Union but there were two main ones, one of which was security in Europe because there had been two major wars within a number of years and Europe was decimated. Thankfully, we have had reasonable security even though it could be argued that there are many threats on the outskirts. The second main reason for its foundation was food security. The Union has delivered on that, much to the detriment of many farmers. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I am also engaged in farming and we have seen that the prices paid to farmers for products is the same as the prices they were paid 20 years ago. However, the EU has kept the food in the consumer's shopping trolley at an affordable price and it has also ensured the food is traceable, which is important. The European Union has introduced many positive measures. It guaranteed equal pay for women and it introduced many other good measures that would not be in place without it. I dislike the spinning of this discussion into one of larger states versus smaller states. That angle should be kept out of this discussion. It is not fair. This is about taxpayers' money and Mr. Colm McCarthy might address that point.