Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

The Minister's aunt, Deputy O'Rourke, in a speech last week reminded her audience of the common origins of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Both parties spring from the old Sinn Féin, before that honourable title was besmirched by more recent events. Sinn Féin means "ourselves alone" and was not only the title of the national movement, but the title contained its principal objective, that as a nation we would run our own affairs for the betterment of the Irish people. This is what the patriot dead fought and died for and what they achieved was a sovereign Irish State.

Now an inept Government, through its arrogance and avarice has given it away. The Irish Times editorial today asks: "whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side." The Minister should be ashamed and his colleagues should share the shame. That a Fianna Fáil-led Government should be the one to surrender our sovereignty has its own irony. For years it posed as the super green patriots and the uncompromising republicans. Again I quote from The Irish Times:

It [Fianna Fáil] lists among its primary aims the commitment to "maintain the status of Ireland as a sovereign state" [which is one of the principles in its party documentation]. Its founder, Eamon de Valera, in his inaugural address to his new party in 1926, spoke of "the inalienability of national sovereignty" as being fundamental to its beliefs. The Republican Party's ideals are in tatters now.

In every crisis in Ireland, sooner or later a clown emerges. Last night in Dromoland Castle, the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, took over this role. He assured his audience that the crisis was nothing more that a game of poker by saying: "We've got to play poker over the next couple of days to see what cards these people have to play... We would like to see the colour of their money." I am sure his audience from Silicon Valley in Dromoland Castle was suitably impressed.

See this speech in context