Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

We had six crippled institutions. Two and a quarter years later, we still have the same six institutions. Two of them are albatrosses around our neck. Another two are large, important banks that we would like to have seen restored to financial health. One of them seemed to be almost there, but the current situation over the last eight weeks has damaged that institution again. If we sell off these banks and strangers are kind enough to buy one or more of them, do they walk away having received our euro IMF loans while we continue to take the liability? More importantly, our debt-to-GDP ratio changes almost immediately and we will have a huge extra annual interest charge.

When Professor John McHale addressed the Labour Party's away day in Roscommon, we had a discussion about how we did not wish to see Ireland entering a bailout. That is because entering a bailout is an extremely expensive operation for the country which goes into one. The Minister owes the people of this country the truth about whatever arrangements the Government is contemplating coming up with. That is why I want to know who these negotiators are and what is their approach to this country. Are they people from the tea party side of political and economic views? Or are they people who will have the interests of ordinary Irish citizens, including old age pensioners and infants, in mind, as well as those of the money men in the banks whom Fianna Fáil has striven to protect for the last two years while the rest of us could go hang?

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