Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I asked the Taoiseach two questions. The first was whether he was prepared to accept that it is the citizens and the ordinary taxpayers who will have to pay for the failure of banking strategy. We had comments from the Minister for Finance, and indeed from the Taoiseach and other Ministers, that a wind-down of Anglo Irish Bank would be catastrophic and that the proposals put forward by the Fine Gael Party would cost the country billions of euro. The Taoiseach has now arrived at the same situation as the advice we gave two years ago. It is a fact of life that it is the citizens and the taxpayers who will have to pay for the cost of the borrowed money, that is, the interest to deal with the banking situation. That is a charge for years to come on every taxpayer. The Taoiseach should accept that but it is something to which he has not yet admitted.

Second, on the budget deficit of the scale of €18.5 or €19 billion that the Taoiseach mentioned, the Fine Gael Party agrees it is critical that we get the deficit to GDP ratio down to 3% by 2014. The Taoiseach can take it that the Fine Gael Party would be happy to accept any advice or assistance from the Department of Finance in determining our proposals to deal with the budget deficit for 2011-----

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