Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

We are in very exceptional times. Unprecedented uncertainty and instability surrounds the Government. The Government itself is in its last days. The only thing we do not know is how long Fianna Fáil intends to prolong the life of the Government. The Green Party says it will be January. Yesterday, the Taoiseach seemed to indicate it would be February. Deputy Collins told a radio station this morning that it would be March and I understand a Minister told another radio yesterday that it would be May. It would appear the Government is trying to drag things out for as long as possible. Meanwhile, the Taoiseach will not commit to shortening the budgetary process. Last year, the Finance Bill was debated until the end of March. All of that process could be shortened if the Government chose to do so.

Now, we have continuing uncertainty regarding the banks. The Taoiseach will remember that when the Labour Party proposed, in early 2009, that the main banks be temporarily taken into public ownership, he rubbished that proposal. The Government is now having the banks nationalised anyway, but at a very expensive cost.

The Taoiseach is now in the process of applying to the European institutions and the IMF for a massive loan. He describes it as an overdraft. It is one hell of an overdraft. We are now told it will amount to €85,000 million. I have never heard of anyone applying for an overdraft they did not know the size of. The Taoiseach mentioned, in passing, that the figure of €85 billion was mentioned. Is that the size of the overdraft the State is applying for from the European institutions? He says the interest rate is being negotiated. Can he, at least, indicate the parameters of that negotiation? What is the highest level of interest being asked for? What is this overdraft likely to cost? What is the distribution of the overdraft between what the banks will require and what the State will require? Again, anyone applying for an overdraft would know the elements making up such an overdraft, what it is being required for and what would inform it.

See this speech in context