Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be naive to think that just because the IMF, European ministers and the ESM are involved in these negotiations, they will always have the interests of the member state seeking to access credit. They may genuinely think they have the interests of the member state, but they will be coming at it from their own position and views. We have experienced this. Was the Minister's predecessor not walking down the steps into the Dáil when he got the call saying he could not burn the bondholders because a bomb would go off in Dublin if he did? A Cabinet decision taken democratically by elected Members of the Oireachtas elected to the office of Minister was halted by a phone call after a decision in Europe. That has been our reality and as a result of deciding to fold at that point, unguaranteed bondholders were paid billions.

What is worth noting and welcome in this part of the legislation is that this would not happen today. Bondholders would be burned. It is now the accepted principle throughout Europe, through the Single Resolution Fund, that there would be a bail-in and bondholders would be burned, in the first instance, through a tiered structure. Unfortunately, this comes ten years too late for Ireland and we did not have a Cabinet at the time willing to implement the decisions it took. I do not know if there was ever a time in history that a Cabinet decision was overturned by a phone call.

It is a bit naive to suggest that just because the Minister's colleagues are in ECOFIN, they will always have Ireland's interests at heart. We have seen many of the challenges, twists and turns in relation to other objectives Ireland wanted to meet and how they were frustrated along the way, whether by Germany or another entity. Others have their own ideas, which are valid, but they have their own priorities as regards how the system should work.