Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There hasn't been. Finally, you had an exchange with Senator MacSharry there about the guarantee and the costs, and I just want to put it to you: on the one hand you're saying the guarantee was too generous and magnified the fiscal impact of the banking crisis, but on the other hand, you are defending the insistence of the ECB and the Commission that senior bondholders would not have any losses imposed on them. And I put it to you that there is a contradiction in both of those positions because the only way that the costs of the banking bailout in Ireland could have been lessened is if you either don't repay senior bondholders or depositors take a haircut. Junior bondholders suffered very large losses; equity holders were wiped out effectively, so how could you lessen the cost of the bank bailout without imposing losses on senior bondholders?