Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

This Bill is the technical expression of the deal reached by eurozone countries in a bid to avoid the wave of sovereign debt defaults threatening Europe. Before discussing Europe in general, I wish to reflect on a number of issues pertaining to the Irish situation. There is an onus on the Minister for Finance and his Department to make a number of statements and to provide information before the recess that would allow us to assess genuinely the Irish position before entering the guarantee's exit period. According to Fianna Fáil, that €440 billion guarantee would cost the taxpayer nothing, be the cheapest in the world and restore our fortunes. It will officially expire at the end of September. The Minister appears to be confident that he can extend it by a further month, if not to the end of the year.

Nonetheless, we are in the exit period for the Irish bank guarantee. What is the debt cliff as we approach the end game in the bank guarantee? The Government has established the eligible liabilities guarantee, ELG, with the permission of Europe so that new debt that can be rolled out of the guarantee will be guaranteed by our Government for a period of up to five more years. I have been continuously requesting information from the Minister and from the Department of Finance in respect of this. From the Minister's most recent suggestion, some €30 billion of senior debt is coming up for rollover between now and the end of the year. Earlier answers by the Minister suggest the figure may be as high as €74 billion. It is wrong that I, as spokesperson on finance for the Labour Party, have not been provided with a definitive answer. I refer to the mismanagement of the Irish banking crisis, not simply by Fianna Fáil but also because of the lack of appropriate advice from the Department of Finance. We do not know this because we have not seen the documents. It may well be that the Department of Finance advised the Minister well but was overridden by the Department of the Taoiseach. As far as banking and financial information is concerned, we are living in a secret society. We are prepared to let the international bond markets know our financial position and the senior bankers in the discredited banking institutions seem to know what the position is but the people of Ireland and their elected representatives in the Oireachtas do not have that information. This is a serious mistake in trying to help the country to exit from the decision by Fianna Fáil to provide a blanket guarantee, including the guarantees to the failed Anglo Irish Bank and the even more failed but smaller Irish Nationwide Building Society.

We also have a debt overhang in respect of NAMA. We have passed the middle part of June. In discussions on NAMA, we were promised the revised business plan of NAMA would be published and available. We are approaching the end of June but we do not have a clue what is the revised NAMA business plan, nor do we know if the Minister has a clue. The indications, in revised answers, were that the revised plan would be made available to the Minister by the end of June and perhaps the mere Parliament of the Irish people would receive it shortly thereafter. However, we do not know. This is a core element of the Irish problem. We have a Government that has chosen to adopt total secrecy. The advice of Merrill Lynch to the Government has not been published, nor has the stress testing of Irish banks. This inevitably will be adopted by the eurozone to appease financial markets so they know how good or bad is the sovereign debt of individual banks and individual countries. That is as inevitable as night follows day yet years after stress testing, which we were told showed everything in the Irish banks was fine and dandy, we do not have a word of information published.

I challenge the Minister of Finance to deliver on his promise that he and the Taoiseach will face the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service to answer these questions. He threw out the rhetoric last week to the effect that he was prepared to tell us whatever we wanted to know and was prepared to make documentation available but I am standing here empty-handed and I am as wise now as when he issued these rhetorical promises last week. These promises are as good as Fianna Fáil's promise at the time of the last election to cut PRSI by 50% and to raise the old age pension to €300 per week. Promises made by the Minister for Finance last week about the divulging of information about the Irish crisis have not been made good. I challenge the Minister to put the information in the public domain.

NAMA is, in effect, a secret body whose leading figures give interviews and some information from time to time. We know nothing in detail about the top developers, many of whom are into NAMA for sums between €1 billion and €1.5 billion of debt. What is going on between NAMA, Treasury Holdings and the principals associated with Treasury Holdings, Mr. Ronan and Mr. Barrett? It is extremely important the Minister tells us what is going on. A statement was issued yesterday, which was published in the newspapers this morning, by Treasury Holdings and Real Estate Opportunities, REO, that the losses last year in respect of Irish properties were north of 51%. However, according to the story, the company requested the Irish Government, through NAMA, to participate in the development of the Chelsea power station site. According to newspaper reports, this would cost between €5 billion and €6 billion. When the NAMA Bill was before the House, the borrowing powers of NAMA in financing developers to finish projects was listed as €5 billion. I do not think the Government is foolish enough to endorse a suggestion that it would finance the building of the enormous Chelsea power station, but we are entitled to know what view the Government is taking.

We know that China Real Estate Opportunities, CREO, is moving to Singapore to be closer to its eastern markets. Can the Minister for Finance and the Government tell us the position of the principals of Treasury Holdings, REO and CREO, who I understand to include Mr. Barrett and Mr. Ronan? Have they given enforceable personal guarantees to NAMA and the Irish Government in respect of the recovery of the money and advanced via NAMA for distressed loans, most of which arise from the failed Anglo Irish Bank? It is important for the Minister to return to the Dáil and make a statement because vast amounts of money are riding on the proposals in the newspapers this morning. We have been told nothing by the Minister for Finance. It is important that we find out before this day is over. Through Anglo Irish Bank, we know we are on the hook for at least €1 billion in losses in respect of Quinn Insurance. Now, the principals in REO want to complete Chelsea power station and the cost will be between €5 billion and €6 billion. I want a statement on the record as to the position the Minister for Finance is taking on this proposal. The powers NAMA has are extraordinary, and the powers the Minister for Finance has in respect of the covered institutions and NAMA are extraordinary. These are very large amounts of money and we are entitled to know the Government's business plan regarding these proposals because, in effect, the Government is a very large, if not the greatest, stakeholder in these various companies.

If China Real Estate Opportunities is going to Singapore, I want to know if the Government was consulted about the Singapore listing? What is the position on the principals in the company? Are they likely to move to Singapore and go offshore from Ireland? Have guarantees been given by the principals of the company in respect of the obligations NAMA has taken over from the distresses of their companies in order to put the debt of their companies onto the backs of the Irish taxpayers through NAMA?

These are important and fundamental questions, and they must be discussed and responded to by the Department of Finance and by the Minister for Finance. I expect the Minister to return to the House and to give us answers because what is happening in the context of today's debate is that the European Union and the eurozone are essentially offering a stabilisation fund to the markets, which the Labour Party supports. The markets are good now, and all of the institutions of the Irish State - the Minister for Finance, the Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator - bow down to the markets. They are offering the markets, collectively and through the eurozone, this burnt offering but it is incumbent on Members of this House to make sure that burnt offering does not mean the Irish people become toast as a consequence of the markets. The Minister has been less than forthcoming in the statement he made here this morning.

It is ironic that the National Treasury Management Agency is based in Treasury Building, which has a figure either climbing down the side of the building or holding on for dear life climbing up the side of it. I am not sure which it is but I know the proprietors and the principal people in Treasury Holdings seem to have been able to hold on to their lifestyles. One of the principals was able to fly off to Morocco in a private jet for a long weekend. I cannot last remember when a civil servant who took a pension levy or a wage cut was able to jet off to Morocco with friends for a long weekend. Are these people so important they are not questionable and they are not to be accountable for their actions? They are clever business people. They have hit a financial crash. They will possibly get themselves out of it again but our interest is to ensure that Irish taxpayers' money is recovered in good time and in good order so that we do not have to spend it on banks but on important areas such as schools and hospitals and getting people back to work. That is the net point.

All of us in Ireland and in Europe have a huge vested interest in a sound euro. It is hard to credit, given the disastrous economic management of Fianna Fáil, but we in Ireland would be much worse off without the euro. We have only to consider what happened in Iceland and the difficulties it had with such a weak and greatly devalued currency. The continued solvency of the participating member states in the eurozone is vital to the euro as it is a more all-encompassing way for Europeans, including us in Ireland, to proceed.

Economic and monetary union in Europe is a unique economic development which has resulted in significant gains for everybody in the euro area. There is no federal state or political union among the states. Instead, sovereign states are sharing their sovereignty for the mutual benefit of the citizens of the states, with effective supranational institutions like the European Commission and the European Central Bank, but uniquely for a union of sovereign states, European Union law has supremacy over national law. We have this continuous tension in Europe between European sovereignty on the one hand and a group of national states on the other.

It is clear that EMU is a work in progress. The original design of this unique monetary union was not adequate for the long-term survival of the euro and, to be honest, the jury is still out on that. It could not withstand a foreseeable solvency crisis, even in a relatively small participating state. Like Ireland, Greece, the country most in the news in that regard, is a very small percentage of the total activity and percentage of the eurozone.

A foreseeable problem is that there is a large risk of contagion from one crisis hit state to other participating states perceived by the financial markets as having similar problems. That remains a problem for us. The exit strategy from the guarantee scheme is coming up. We do not know what is the debt overhang. We have bond rates which are higher than Spain, despite the fact that we have had a much greater level of austerity, yet so far Spain has only committed to future austerity.

After the economic and financial crisis of May 2010 we now know that we need a large stabilisation fund as part of EMU because there will not be a federal government with a corresponding financial capacity in Europe for decades to come, if ever. We cannot let our euro and our economic futures be at the mercy of global financial markets or let anonymous traders have a go and make a quick million bucks without a care or thought for the lives that would be affected as a result of their actions. This stabilisation fund, in the view of the Labour Party, is a belated but essential piece of the architecture of a sound and permanent euro and economic and monetary union in Europe.

Let us be clear. The purpose of that economic and monetary union from the point of view of the Labour Party, and on that we differ from Fianna Fáil, is not about the prosperity of bankers. It is about the prosperity of citizens. Fianna Fáil is focused exclusively on baling out the bankers and the developers. That is the reason it is so important that the questions I raised earlier are answered. Will we get back our money or will we put more money in the way of the developers through NAMA?

I hope the measures taken here this morning will be accompanied, in the case of Europe, by a financial transactions tax that would operate at a small level on financial transactions. In the Irish case, if the Labour Party gets into power, we want to see our money being recovered and a levy on the banks because we know that with the losses accumulated by the banks it will be decades before any bank in Ireland will pay tax. We want to see a plan from Fianna Fáil - the Minister did not even refer to it - of how the ordinary Irish taxpayer is to recover their money. Instead, we had Fianna Fáil blithely suggesting yesterday that the ordinary Irish taxpayer is good for another soaking in terms of a range of new taxes while the banks will be left on the side to contribute zero. It is no wonder citizens are enraged, and rightly so.

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