Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I have great sympathy for the Greek people. They have suffered a great deal for a long time. They have experienced a level of suffering that we did not even though our community had to make many sacrifices. This is the first point that I would make.

I have great regrets that Greece, which was on the cusp of recovery at the start of 2015, has returned to recession.

On the hopes of an arrangement being made between the European creditor countries and the Greek authorities, no paper is available to me at the current time that suggests we will have any paper-based discussion at the meeting of the Eurogroup on Thursday. No negotiation is proceeding at the current time. In the middle of last week it looked as if we were on the cusp of an arrangement, but that dissipated, as the committee is probably aware from newspaper reports, and there is no proposal on the table. While there will be some discussion on Greece, in the absence of paper generated by the institutions formerly called the troika, there will not be a substantive discussion on it.