Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Member states will have to pay the money back with interest, just as the banks will have to ensure the Single Resolution Fund is made up of bank contributions. However, member states, using taxpayers' money, will step in if that is not sufficient at a point in time, but will be paid back. There are no structural or other conditions that could be applied to member states if they run into financial difficulties. If a bank is running into financial difficulty, there is bail-in and burning of bondholders, which should have happened ten years ago, but in any event is happening now. In addition to the bail-in of bondholders, we will have the tiered process and the Single Resolution Fund. However, if the Single Resolution Fund, which is made up of bank contributions, runs out, taxpayers' money, through the ESM, will be made available to banks. It has to be paid back but there is no other conditionality on top of that.

Yet member states that run into financial difficulty have to pay back the money to the ESM in an agreed period and there is a raft of conditionality. The IMF is drawn in as the ESM. There are negotiations around structural changes that may happen around possibly selling off assets and changes with laws that might be implemented and so on. As the lead negotiator in this, did the Minister ever consider that would not be fair or balanced and that maybe banks should have conditionality imposed on them if they run into difficulty?