Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I cannot anticipate the date of the referendum. It will depend on how everything ends up at the June Council meeting. I take the general point that it would be important thereafter to try to come to a conclusion on the best time to hold the referendum and have everybody behind a "Yes" campaign who was behind it the last time. People are examining that as we speak. There is no great difference of opinion between us. I cannot say whether there will be a referendum before the October Council meeting. The Government will have to decide on that and in the context of our discussions we will have to ensure, as a precondition for our holding a referendum, that we get what we sought. Let that process proceed and things will become clearer after the June Council meeting, we hope.

There are EU guidelines on impaired assets. On that matter and the recapitalisation question, Chancellor Merkel emphasised at the outset that this is a tool kit and it is a matter for member states to choose. There is no uniform way by which member governments will come up with a solution to this problem across the union. There are different requirements, circumstances and types of problems. The broad EU guidelines that have been set out ensure it is done within a framework that is understood by everybody and involves the Commission, and ensures whatever action is taken is done in as co-ordinated a fashion as possible.

We work on the basis of advice from people with market ability and experience in the NTMA and others. We have put forward our proposals on the basis of seeking to protect taxpayers' interests in a way that will, hopefully, try to overcome this problem. The challenge is to underpin domestic and international confidence in our banking system and at the same time have people face up to the writing down requirements that exist to deal with the legacy issues, as Deputy Bruton describes them, separately from the core franchise in which banks should operate.

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