Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not questioning that. It seemed a very exclusive kind of meeting, which a lot of people understandably criticised. One of the key purposes of the meeting was the enormous difficulties in a number of Italian banks. Unless that issue is addressed, it will have serious knock-on consequences for everybody else down the road. We are now in a more uncertain situation because of the Brexit vote in the UK. The difference between this and the bank guarantee which, except for ourselves, everybody else here would have voted for, is that this allows single banks to be addressed, rather than a blanket bank guarantee, as was done previously. Obviously, this would have to come before the Dáil to be discussed in the case of the failure of a significant bank at a significant level. Now we are entering into a period of uncertainty caused by Brexit, with a high-level meeting dealing with really difficult issues in the Italian banks.