Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I said, some of the Minister's logic in relation to this is very left field. He has made the argument that this is a loan to the banks. But sure, what does he think the other credit lines are to member states? They are not grants. They are not cheques that do not have to be paid back. They are loans as well. They have to be paid back. The Minister has argued that it is a loan, therefore, we will get the money back. That does not make any sense. The other two credit lines are loans as well to member states with the expectation that member states pay those loans back in the future. We will disagree on this. Obviously, as the chair of the Eurogroup the Minister had a key role in this. I am disappointed. Yes, the bondholders will be bailed in. That is good. We have been calling for that for years. It is the logical thing to do. Yes, there is a fund established by the banks and taxpayers' money will not be utilised in the settlements. That is the right thing to do, but there is scope for conditionality. For example, we have had it in our own experience here. Should the board of a bank continue to exist, or should the option be available to the ESM to remove the board of a bank and the CEO of a bank if he or she was involved in reckless lending that forced bondholders to take the hit and the Single Resolution Fund to be exhausted?

The Single Resolution Fund is made up of contributions from financial institutions across member states. Some of these financial institutions may not have put a foot wrong but will be paying for what could possibly be a rogue financial institution. That type of conditionality does not exist because you have not put it in place. Yes, there will be plenty of conditionality and an open book in relation to member states, including that the Minister cannot give the commitment that even those conditions would not affect public services or economic recovery. Yet, there is no scope for the ESM to introduce that type of conditionality even though the same taxpayers' money that would be made available to the credit line to member states would be utilised by banks through the vehicle of the Single Resolution Fund. On that point, I will leave my comments on the Bill.