Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I can see that the Minister of State is migrating his speeches on finance into the foreign affairs area, which is a great pity. What has damaged us is the year-on-year deficit of the past two years, which was €10.8 billion. Of that sum, €4 billion went into Ango-Irish Bank. If the Minister asked the public to choose between meeting our target for overseas development aid and bailing out Anglo-Irish Bank, which is a zombie bank, he would get a convincing answer. It is not a choice between getting the economy right and meeting our aid targets, because we can do both. The Minister cannot escape the fact, however, that a small clique in the banking sector has done almost irreparable damage to Ireland's reputation abroad that will last for a generation. At the same time, people working effectively in several countries are enhancing Ireland's reputation and have built up a huge legacy. Let those in other Departments who want to go soft on the likes of Anglo-Irish Bank deal with that, but the Minister of State's responsibility is to the poorest of the poor. The senior Minister's responsibility is to explain how a further cut can be made without damaging the structure of the programme, given that €222 million has been allocated already, which represents a 25% cut.

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