Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I never said that would happen. I said this was a negotiated outcome and other countries would be involved and I pointed to the acknowledgement that there is conditionality. I never, in any of my statements, said this would be guided by altruism alone and purely the interests of one country. This is a negotiated outcome, as I have said repeatedly in my presentation. The reason is that multiple national interests are at stake, as are the interests of institutions charged with protecting the health and future of the eurozone. For this reason, I have referred throughout my presentation to other countries being involved in this and the existence of conditionality.

With regard to the Deputy's point about what happened to us a decade ago, the abiding lesson I take from that is that if a country loses its economic sovereignty and is not in a position to fund itself and give confidence to others that it will be able to fund itself in the future, it is vulnerable and more open to pressures that can develop. It is one of the reasons this treaty is now being ratified throughout the European Union. Through the development of the credit lines the Deputy and I discussed a few moments ago, and especially through the strengthening of the role of the European Stability Mechanism with regard to the SRF, the EU is trying to prevent acute financial crises from developing in the future and mitigate the harm they cause. Nowhere in my presentation have I sought to infer that this is anything but the outcome of negotiations.