Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It is different. The situation of international banks in Greece is different to Ireland. I have pointed out in my reply the main areas that will, more than likely, be discussed at the Heads of Government meeting. I intend to meet with Mr. Van Rompuy on Friday. Ireland's position is a priority for us. Let us be very clear that the Heads of Government agreed there should be or could be a reduction in interest rates applied to countries in the EFSF bailout. At that time, Ireland was not in that category. Neither was Greece, although it was being bailed out under a slightly different scheme. A reduction and an extension of the repayment period was applied in the case of Greece. When Ireland became involved in a bailout deal, the question of the interest rate reduction was part of that. Responsibility for that was given to the Minister for Finance because the banks' stress tests had not been concluded. That is one element of the conditions that apply here.

We met the conditions laid out by the troika but, because of a particular demand placed in Ireland that we go beyond the conditions for the bailout deal by increasing our corporation tax rate, I was not prepared to concede. Negotiations on that have been ongoing since and will continue. Hopefully we can reach a conclusion in due course.

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