Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That brings me to the second part of the point I was going to make specifically on Ukraine. Like others, I am pragmatic on these things. Funding mechanisms are put in place to get around problems that exist on the ground, particularly when a union of 27 sovereign states is trying to figure out how to do something. With regard to the role of the Court of Auditors, looking at one aspect, it is blatantly 100% obvious that Ukraine does not have the capacity to repay a loan. Therefore, can auditing sign off on it being deemed to be a loan? Let us say I go outside this building, randomly hand €1,000 to somebody on the street and tell that person the money is a loan. I do not know how it will every be paid back or how I will get it back. If I did that on a regular basis, my bank manager would tell me I cannot do that and the bank will not give me any more money to hand out. When does the audit function say to the Council function, “Hang on a second, this cannot be classified in this way”? Ironically, the only way Ukraine could repay those loans is a Marshall Plan to the power of 100, being paid this time by the European Union and not the United States. I think it is clear at this stage that whatever about what might happen in Palestine, there is no question that United States money will not be the lead money. European Union money will be required to be the lead money in rebuilding Ukraine. Where do we call a halt? At what point do the auditors step in and say this should be accounted for in a different way?