Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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My question relates to the same issue. Mr. O'Leary said that Europe puts up barriers monthly to prevent off-balance-sheet borrowing, yet we see that Spain, France, Italy, Lithuania and Austria will all break that rule this year and it does not appear that they will suffer any penalties for doing so. It seems as if Europe will give France permission to borrow off-balance sheet without any of the penalties involved to deal with extra spend on security because of ISIS. Mr. O'Leary has just answered the question, but I was wondering how in God's name Ireland cannot be given some sort of flexibility in view of the fact that we have a housing emergency, our response to which surely has greater merit than what France is up to, given that it is probably still spending more money bombing the living daylights out of people in Iraq and Syria. My question to Mr. O'Leary would have been - but he has just answered it - whether he has had any part in the negotiations with the Department of Finance in this area. Sometimes we wonder whether the Department of Finance even asks if we can have the money off-balance sheet without incurring penalties or whether it takes the decision not to ask anyway because we are such good boys and do not want to challenge the rules. Does Mr. O'Leary have any input in this area?