Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an deis labhairt ar an cheist seo inniu. I welcome the fact that this motion has been tabled but I wish to indicate that Sinn Féin will be rejecting it when the vote is called. Deputy Ó Caoláin made repeated requests for a debate on this matter and he was continually informed that there was no need for either a debate or a vote in respect of it. Again, it was a threat by Sinn Féin to bring the Government to the High Court in order to prove that it would be unconstitutional to push through the EU-IMF programme without a vote which caused action to be taken. Letters that were sent by Deputy Ó Caoláin on Tuesday of last week eventually had the desired effect and resulted in the motion before the House being tabled.

Perhaps the Minister might provide me with some assistance as I appear to be missing the final page of his speech. I refer to page 5, which, I presume, refers to this being the cheapest bailout in the world and on which it is stated that the worst is over and that we have turned a corner. It may be the case, however, that all of these slogans have been forgotten and that those on the benches opposite are repenting for making such misleading statements in the past.

The Minister stated that we have every reason to be confident about the future of the economy. I fundamentally disagree with him in this regard. I would love to be in a position to support his assertion but the reality is that we cannot be confident about the future of the economy. The motion before the House and the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Bill 2010, with which we will deal later, are both designed to underpin failed strategies on the part of the Government in respect of the banks and the structural deficit. The strategies to which I refer have resulted in the country falling ever deeper into a black hole.

Unless the Government really turns the corner and takes us off the one-way street on which we have been moving for the past two years, we can have no confidence in it. Exaggerated claims have been made in respect of what has been done during the past two years. Essentially, what the Government wants to do is transform the banking debt into sovereign debt. It wants to ask the people who took the hit in last week's budget - namely, the unemployed and those on the minimum wage or low incomes - to bail out the bondholders in our banks. Those bondholders are gamblers who invested their money in the banks. Had their investments been successful, they would have received nice returns. However, the latter did not prove to be the case and now the Government is asking taxpayers to take the hit. It is for this reason that we cannot have confidence in the current Administration.

Let us consider the trajectory on which the Government has placed the country and on what outside forces are saying. Ireland's debt has been downgraded by the international ratings agencies. It was downgraded immediately after the budget in light of the austerity measures announced in the latter, and to which Fine Gael and Labour have signed up, and the contents of the national recovery plan. The national recovery plan has been discredited because the European Commission has already extended the timeframe relating to it to five years instead of four. The austerity measures to which I refer are strangling the economy. Our exposure to the debts of the banks means that those in the international bond markets have no confidence that Ireland will be in a position to return to those markets or that they will be able to lend to us. This is because they are unsure as to whether we will be able to repay our debts.

A number of actions must be taken. In the first instance, the banking debt must be separated from the structural deficit. The Minister tried to present the bailout in such a way as to make the IMF and the EU appear like knights in shining armour, riding to our rescue on their white horses and providing assistance to Irish citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let us consider a couple of points. Some €35 billion of the money from the bailout will be ploughed directly into the banks. The yearly interest repayments relating to this amount will be in excess of €2 billion and they will have to be met by Irish taxpayers. By the end of the four year plan, the people will be paying €10 billion per year in interest. That is unsustainable. We cannot make such repayments into the foreseeable future.

We have two options. The first of these involves beginning to default in respect of private investments. Such investments are not State bonds and they should never be considered as sovereign debt. We either default on these private investments, which were made by the bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank, or we continue down the one-way street on which we are travelling and at the end of which is a cul-de-sac. If the latter course is taken, then at some point in the future Ireland will be obliged to default on sovereign bonds. None of us wants this to happen. However, we must make the distinction between private investment and investment in the State.

Earlier today, the Taoiseach indicated that the rate which will apply in respect of the bailout from the European financial stabilisation mechanism, EFSM, will be the standard rate. That is not true. The 3% additional interest that we will be obliged to pay is punitive. Under what is proposed, our partners in Europe will profit from the misery of the Irish people. In July, Commissioner Olli Rehn announced a €200 million additional investment in Latvia. The money in question was paid out in September and the lower interest rate applied in respect of it. The Minister for Finance, who represents Ireland at meetings of the ECOFIN Council, has sold the people out. A banner which read "We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland" was once hung outside Liberty Hall. We did not serve them then and we will not serve them now. People throughout the country are demanding that the IMF be sent home.

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