Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Any putative Government opposing the joint programme has a duty to set out for the electorate its alternative source of funding for this country over the next few years. I have referred to various assertions about European contacts that the principal Opposition party has made in the course of this debate. I was about to make the point that the most influential and important contact of the Fine Gael Party is the German Christian Democratic Union and Chancellor Merkel, whose intervention played a large part in the escalation of our bond prices this autumn. I urge Fine Gael to use its influence in that regard.

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