Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the officials from the Department of Finance. I will address the issue of macro-economic forecasts in a moment but first I welcome the legislative proposals. Irish taxpayers should be pleased that significant aspects of the rules that we, as a programme country, are obliged to follow will be applied to other countries. Perhaps some of the difficulties Europe has experienced by virtue of a lack of regulation in the past will be reduced, if not eliminated, by the proposed measures. It should be noted that much of what the Council has decided does not apply to Ireland and relates to other countries which are on the verge of entering a programme or experiencing some level of difficulty.

On the aspects of the proposal that relate to the repayment of 75% debt from European Union sources, we heard that these sources comprise the European Stability Mechanism, European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism, European Central Bank and multilateral loans. Do they also include what would be described as European bank lending? In other words, is there a difference between what is described in this proposal as "aid" a nation receives from European institutions and what could be described as borrowing from European institutions, including banks?

Irish debt percentages do not include the portion of our debt which arises from funding provided by the International Monetary Fund. While I should perhaps know the figure, what percentage of our current debt is from European Union sources? In other words, are we close to achieving the 25% threshold under which we would not longer be subject to supervision?