Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The simple reason is that this is the first time the mechanism has been used as a lender of last resort working with other international organisations that are providing the cheapest form of international credit available to the IMF. If Deputy Gilmore wants to equate humanitarian or other aid to Latvia and Hungary with the situation we are in today, he is not acknowledging the context in which the European Union - and ECOFIN in May - decided, in taking up this posture, to make available funds at a similar rate as is available from other international institutions that provide money for this purpose. Money is provided by the European Union for other purposes, for which a margin is not charged.

If the money were not available from the European Union and we did not take up the EFSM money we would, presumably, have to get it from the European Financial Stability Facility, EFSF, which would be at a slightly higher rate, or from the IMF, which is at the same rate as the money Deputy Gilmore is talking about. There is no alternative, bar the market, to the EU, the EFSF and the ESFM. That is the situation.

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