Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

If I can continue the image, Deputies will remember the sign in the western saloons, "Don't shoot the piano player, he is doing his best". Some of us may agree with that but in the past fortnight we are wondering if the Minister is doing his best because he did not share events with his colleagues.

Be that as it may, it was an appalling shock for everyone in this country to realise there was no possibility of saving ourselves through our own resources and the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank were coming in. The Minister has never explained, to this House or to the public, the triggers that led to those events, what was going on in the background and how we got into this position. When negotiations came around, it was equally bizarre. There were European, IMF and Irish civil servants beavering away and doing their best but they were not under any political direction. At least, that is the position of the Minister's colleagues. They said they did not know what was going on, that the Cabinet was not making those decisions and that there were no instructions coming from Cabinet. Was it a one-man band or a two-man band or was there any band at all? Was it left totally to officials?

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