Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

Sunday night must have been the worst night for any Irish Cabinet since the Civil War. It was an appalling situation where, after running our own affairs for so many years, the Minister for Finance had to go and plead with our colleagues in Europe to come to the assistance of this country. Nobody on this side of the House had any part to play in the conditions which developed which required the intervention. The intervention was totally as a result of actions taken by the Government and the Minister's attempts to resolve the situation over the past two years have only made matters worse. He has become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

If our problems arose solely on the fiscal side, they would be difficult but manageable, despite the deficit of almost 12% between income and expenditure, and we could have addressed them ourselves by continuing down the path of fiscal correction which we started to take two years ago and in respect of which I complimented the Minister in the past. The difficulty arises when the burden of bank restructuring is added to the fiscal problem. That is the straw, the bale of straw or the lorry load of straw which broke the camel's back. On Sunday night, it drove the Minister into the arms of his European colleagues and across the Atlantic to ask the IMF in Washington to come to our assistance. That was a humiliating request for the Minister, the Cabinet and the country. While his colleagues have not shown any sense of shame, I hope he is suitably embarrassed.

It is difficult to know where we stand. He has been chary in giving out essential details of the assistance we are receiving. The management of the period preceding the request was extraordinary. I cannot understand why Minister after Minister issued point blank denials about discussions, negotiations, talks or intentions to requesting the intervention of the European Commission, IMF or European Central Bank. I do not know what kind of Cabinet has been operating if Ministers of long standing were not in the loop. To put it bluntly, they were either lying through their teeth or they had not been briefed. Given that it was certainly embarrassing to watch, it must have been excruciating for the people concerned. The Minister should explain to the House what happened. His Cabinet colleagues appeared to be hanging out with no information three or four days before he made the calls to his colleagues in Europe. Contacts had been ongoing for several weeks and discussions were being held under his direction between officials from the Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the institutions concerned.

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