Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

This is about the Government presenting bonds, which will provide access to ECB funds to provide a stimulus to the economy for the purpose of improving the lending capacity of our banking system. Throughout the last session, week in and week out, we discussed the insufficiency of lending in the economy. We are seeking to address that issue through this proposal. We are not in a position to provide a fiscal stimulus to the economy because of the state of our public finances but a stimulus can be provided through this mechanism.

It is, therefore, also not correct to continually portray this as costing the amounts to which the Deputy referred since we are seeking to design a mechanism that will ensure we protect the interest of the taxpayer to the greatest extent possible. We have no motivation other than that in coming forward with this proposal and enacting it after debate having listened to what Members have to say and making sure we can get this as right as we can. It is important that it works and what we are seeking to achieve is that the management agency manages the assets in line with guidelines set down by the EU with the support of the ECB, which supports this proposal.

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