Dáil debates
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Announcement by Minister for Finance on Banking of 30 September 2010: Statements (Resumed).
Sinn Féin has alternative proposals, which we have promoted, but to date the Government has not listened. We have produced credible proposals on job creation, alternatives for funding our social welfare system and alternatives for how we invest in public services and works. One of these is not to bail out the bondholders. We should burn the Anglo Irish Bank bondholders. They bought bank debt not sovereign debt. They gambled, and sometimes when one gambles one suffers the consequences; in this case they should do so because they lost. We did not lose but the Government is making us lose because of the consequences of a gamble by others. If we burn the Anglo Irish Bank bondholders, it would immediately free up the €17 billion which the Government has committed for other public service and job creation projects. These bondholders did not lend money to the State. They did not lend money to me or anybody else in the State. It was private money lent to private banks. They were not loans to create jobs or build schools; they were loans to speculate and accumulate. To speculate means one can lose.
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