James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

What else is wrong in this regard? I note that it appears to be perfectly all right for Angela Merkel to indicate that bondholders should be negotiated with. Furthermore, it appears quite clear that under the draft Basel agreement for banks currently under discussion, in future bondholders will be negotiated with. Consequently, I do not see a reason for Ireland to take on this full burden itself. Moreover, I dislike the phrase, "burning the bondholders", because that predetermines the outcome of negotiations.

This memorandum of agreement, on which the Government refused to allow the people to vote and on which it refused to allow this Parliament to vote on their behalf, fails because of the absence of bank resolution and the lack of a growth plan. Moreover, the Government's own growth figures that were included already have been contradicted by the IMF and the European Union as being utterly unrealistic. They are utterly unrealistic because neither a growth package nor a jobs stimulus package was included. However, worst of all, the Government has saddled the people with what many consider to be a penal rate of interest. It certainly is a highly punishing rate that means that by 2013, we could be paying as much as €11 billion in interest payments. I believe the Government has been inept in this regard and put out the wrong people to negotiate. Moreover, I fail to understand how it could allow its negotiators to throw their hats into the ring at 4 p.m. when the opposition - which is how one must look at it when in negotiations - had a deadline of 7 a.m. the following morning with the markets. Why were they not held there until 6.57 a.m. to extract what should have been a much better deal than we got?

This morning I asked the Taoiseach whether there was any inference for Ireland, given that Greece now has been given the same deal as us, even though everyone is familiar with the problems the Greeks had with their annual reporting. Have Members become too busy in being good Europeans instead of remembering that their first duty is to be good Irish men and women and to stand by the people and the Republic? The Minister, Deputy Pat Carey, was correct when he suggested that we will come through this. While we will come through this, it will not be because of the Government but because of the people themselves, who have shown they have the energy, enthusiasm and innovation to get through this. However, this will be achieved much quicker with new leadership and a new Government that speaks to and for the people and that listens to the people. If Members opposite truly wish to put the interests of Ireland first, this evening they will support the motion that Fine Gael has tabled. They will allow for all the attendant legislation pertaining to the budget to be dealt with before Christmas, thereby affording a clean slate going into January and offering the people new hope and a new dawn.

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