Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. There has been much discussion about the concept of sovereignty, a word which has been regularly bandied about in recent years. "Sovereignty" has different meanings for different people. However, it is generally understood to refer to a state's ability to control its own destiny, have all its own resources at its disposal and control its future direction without undue regard to the requirements of external authorities. Unfortunately, this country has become indebted to such an extent that it has not been possible to proceed in the normal fashion. All the wringing of hands, tearing of hair and agonised appeals from the opposite side of the House in an attempt to tweak at the heart strings of hard-pressed citizens amounts to nothing but total and utter hypocrisy.

Everybody in this House well knows that the current desperate economic circumstances require desperate measures. These are measures which the Government takes no pleasure in implementing but which are not within the gift of the Government, on behalf of the people, to refuse to take. We are simply now victims of circumstances. The people did not cause this problem. Some modern economic thinkers knew what was happening, allowed it to happen and allowed it to get worse. Some people in the political arena who should have known better did not ask questions in time and allowed the situation to deteriorate. The disposal of State assets is not a desirable objective for anybody, but we are in a desperate situation.

Burning bondholders is not the way to go. One cannot go into a bank and tell the bank manager, "By the way, I intend to burn the bond. I intend not to repay you" and at the same time expect to have a budget position addressed over the next four, five or ten years. People must come into the real world. The reality is that nobody does business with people who talk like that and anybody who believes that confidence will be generated by people who talk like that must think again.

As a result of past experiences, and we are aware of the experiences throughout Europe, the United Kingdom and in the other part of this island in recent years, I am one of those people who would be very reluctant to dispose of State assets but we are in a desperate situation and what do we do? Do we do nothing? Do we stand idly by and allow matters to progress to a point where we will have default in some quarter? I am aware that is a desirable objective in some quarters but I do not believe it is a desirable objective. We must re-establish our credibility in a way never known previously and the proposed disposal of non-strategic State assets is not an erosion of our sovereignty, our nationalism or our ability to look after our own affairs. It is out of necessity and we should do as little as possible to achieve that but we must do what is required. If we do not do what is required we will be criticised further down the road, fail in our task and as a result pay an even higher price.

Now that the experiences of the past number of years are behind us, we should take whatever decisions are necessary to achieve the maximum in terms of targets to be achieved in the shortest possible time so as not to prolong indefinitely the agony and the burden on the people of this country, its institutions and its industry. To do so would be the greatest tragedy of all time.

We should be very careful what we dispose of. We should retain maximum collateral in the current position because collateral is hugely important, as anybody who borrows from a financial institution is aware. We should examine carefully the proposals announced so far with the intention of ensuring our credibility is restored in the European and international arenas and that we do not cause a prolonging of the difficulties and the burden on the people through failure to take action.

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