Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The meeting that is taking place today, at which the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, is representing Ireland, is a meeting of the euro group finance Ministers, ECOFIN. There has been rumour and conjecture for some time regarding Ireland's position, which I clarified a number of times over the weekend, as did the Minister. Despite suggestions to the contrary from whatever quarter - including some who may not be disinterested - this country has not applied to use the European financial stability facility. We made the point, as we have done previously, that we are pre-funded up to mid-2011.

As people also know, there has been a continuing problem with regard to underpinning banking and financial stability in the euro area generally, and the peripheral countries - including Ireland, because of the size of our deficit, the banking crisis and other issues - have had to deal with this. All of the policy initiatives we have taken were with the consent and approval of the EU institutions. Many of the proposals put forward by the Opposition, unfortunately, would not have obtained approval.

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