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

President Draghi is very welcome. My time is limited so I will get to the point. I want to raise two issues. The first relates to the transmission of monetary policy to the end consumer. As Mr. Draghi knows, in Ireland the end consumer pays very high interest rates on debt. For example, in regard to mortgages, the latest official statistics show the average interest rate paid in Ireland on new mortgages drawn down in the month of August was 3.15%, whereas the average across the eurozone was 1.77%, so there is a massive difference of 1.38%, or 138 basis points in Mr. Draghi's language. Mortgage holders, businesses, farmers and other Irish consumers are paying very high interest rates. One of the purposes of Mr. Draghi's monetary policy was to stimulate the economies throughout the eurozone, but low interest rates are not being passed on to the end consumers in Ireland. Has Mr. Draghi a view on that? What can be done to try to reduce interest rates in Ireland and bring them more in line with rates charged elsewhere in the eurozone?

The second issue is in regard to the asset purchase programme, which, as Mr. Draghi said, will come to an end at the end of this year. According to its publications, the ECB has purchased just under €30 billion of Irish Government bonds since 2015, which accounts for about 23% of our national debt in the form of Government bonds, and there is other debt as well. What does Mr. Draghi think the impact will be on peripheral countries like Ireland of the unwinding of that programme? We have about €50 billion of our national debt to be refinanced over the next five years. The concern is that sovereign borrowing costs will increase significantly for countries like Ireland as the ECB unwinds the quantitative easing programme and stops buying new debt. Only a few years ago, 13% of general Government revenue in Ireland was used to pay the interest on the national debt. That has now fallen to 6% to 7% but it is a key risk for the Irish economy.