Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I, of course, regret that it should be necessary for this country to require EU-IMF assistance, but it has arisen due to circumstances beyond our control at the present time. With regard to the apocalyptic interpretation of these events, they depend, first, on an exaggeration of our sovereignty in the past - from 1922 to 1979 we were part of the sterling area with no control over our own currency - and, second, the degree of alleged loss of autonomous decision making in the present. In 1969 and 1976, Britain sought and obtained IMF assistance without any obvious long-term loss of either sovereignty or national identity.

While we have to reduce borrowing to under 3% of GDP within five years, we retain a considerable degree of latitude with regard to how we achieve this. We should be able to maintain, albeit on a significantly more economical basis, the vast majority of our public services. Financial assistance is essential if we are to keep these services going to pay cheques to pensioners, civil servants, farmers, suppliers and others.

We have protected two other bottom lines - the 12.5% corporation tax rate and the Croke Park agreement. One of the critics of our corporation tax rate, the former Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, wrote a letter to the Financial Times on 26 November claiming that: "Ireland's hyper-competitive corporation tax has enabled it to sweep the board when it comes to attracting high-profit, low-capital-spend, foreign direct investment in sectors such as software, pharmaceuticals and so on."

It is key to recovery through export growth and to have removed it would have undermined confidence completely in our ability to recover. In a negotiation it is not possible to make everything a fundamental priority. The National Pensions Reserve Fund, which was one of the best things Charlie McCreevy created - and which all the Opposition parties had it in mind to use, in part to fund their election policy platforms - has been drawn in. It could hardly be otherwise.

There are misconceptions about how negotiations are conducted by governments. In nearly all instances, detailed negotiations are in the first instance conducted by diplomats or officials. Recently, there was a quiet celebration - attended by my ministerial colleague, Deputy Roche - of the 25th anniversary of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. It was one of the major achievements of the Garret FitzGerald-led Fine Gael-Labour coalition. That negotiation was conducted primarily between senior Cabinet officials and diplomats on both sides, of course, under the direction of and subject to the final approval of the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister.

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