Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The outcome of last Wednesday's EU summit marked a missed opportunity for the Taoiseach's Government. He, along with other EU leaders, signed off on a 50% write-down of Greek debt but today at noon, with the Taoiseach's support and authority, a State-owned bank is handing over a cheque for €700 million to unguaranteed bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank.

The Government missed a clear opportunity to put the issue of Irish banking debt on the agenda and to negotiate a reduction in the billions of euro Irish taxpayers must pay to toxic bad banks and unguaranteed bondholders. Before the election and his becoming Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny rightly criticised the logic of paying such bondholders when he stated:

The fact of the matter is that there is now €25 billion of unguaranteed bonded debt for which the Irish taxpayer is being asked to accept liability. I think that is a crushing burden and it is something we should do something about. In so far as Fine Gael are concerned we will seek a mandate from the people as part of our programme that we should be given the authority and mandate from the people to renegotiate this element of what is a crushing debt on our taxpayers.

Sin ráiteas an Taoisigh. In the language of Fine Gael election sound bites, this became "not another red cent" to bad banks.

There is no political, legal or moral obligation on the Government to pay this debt nor was there at the time. The Taoiseach was right then. Ní fiacha na ndaoine iad seo. Seo fiacha amhantraithe sanntacha a bhí ag déanamh anhantraíochta ar an banc Anglo agus a chaill, ach fós tá an Rialtas ag rith isteach agus ag tabhairt tarrthála dóibh.

Before the summit last week, when my party raised this, the Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, ruled out bringing up the issue at the summit but they were able to put forward a credible explanation for why these bondholders should be paid. Why has the Government decided not to stand up for Ireland's interest? Is it happy to receive pats on the head from the governments of France and Germany? Cad í an straitéis? An í, suigh siar agus a bheith ag súil go n-oibreoidh achan rud amach as a stuaim féin? Ní féidir aon rud eile a rá faoi seo.

The pain caused by honouring this bond is unjustified as is that caused by any part of the €3.5 billion in unsecured debt left in Anglo Irish Bank or Irish Nationwide. These banks are now merged and renamed the Irish Bank Resolution Co-operation, a zombie bank. The Taoiseach knows better than I that it does not have deposits, does not lend to customers and is not functioning. Nevertheless, Irish taxpayers are being forced by this Government to endure extreme hardship by paying billions of euro of private banking debt to unguaranteed bondholders. The refusal of the Government even to consider burden sharing with bondholders in a defunct bank is absolutely bizarre. There is no logic, rhyme or reason to the Government's decision to pursue its current course of bailing out bank bondholders.

The Taoiseach tells the House he is powerless to do otherwise yet he sat at a negotiating table in Europe when the halving of Greek sovereign debt was agreed. Níl an Rialtas ionraic le vótálaithe nó leis an Dáil. Inné agus inniu, chuir an Taoiseach stad le aon seans an obair thábhachtach seo a phlé. Last week the Taoiseach told the Dáil the Government had to oversee the payment of this bond because the previous Government had placed €31 billion of promissory notes in Anglo Irish Bank. That is neither credible nor true. The Government would not default on the promissory notes if it ordered Anglo Irish Bank not to pay the private bondholders. There was and is no compulsion on the Government to pay this, regardless of the disastrous decisions of Fianna Fáil.

Last week, members of the Government argued that this bond would be paid out, not from Irish taxpayers' money but from the actual resources of Anglo Irish Bank. Perhaps the Taoiseach might explain to the citizens how a bank which has received €30 billion of Irish taxpayers' money, is in full State ownership and completely insolvent, can be described as having its own "resources"? Ministers also sought to link the bailing out of these bondholders with the EU-IMF deal. On the "Six-One News" on Thursday, the Minister, Deputy Noonan, claimed we had the choice of either "repudiating the programme or working the programme" and the Government was working the programme. As the Taoiseach conceded, this matter is not part of the programme, and certainly is not part of the memorandum agreement.

Sinn Féin welcomes the decision of the Greek Government to hold a referendum on the EU-IMF bailout. We call for a referendum on the memorandum agreement which the previous Government introduced after negotiation with the EU and the IMF. The Taoiseach's Government is now implementing that agreement against which it railed at the time. The approach of the Greek Government on this issue is in marked contrast to that of our Government. Last week the Taoiseach indicated he was prepared to accept changes to EU treaties, changes which would give Europe greater fiscal control over Irish affairs. He refused to give assurances that any changes to EU treaties which would mean a further loss of sovereignty would be put to a referendum. This was yet another flip-flop given that he had previously ruled out treaty change as a means of tackling the European crisis. Fianna Fáil and the Green Party gave away monetary power; the Taoiseach is poised to give away fiscal powers. The Taoiseach said, "I would not wish to see a situation evolve where there would be two categories of membership or an arrangement of inner and outer circles." That is exactly what he is acquiescing in.

The leaders of France and Germany have dithered in dealing with the crisis for months on end. They have acted in their own national interests, rather than in the interests of citizens across Europe. It is not acceptable that the EU approach to this European crisis is being dictated by the Prime Minister of France and the leader in Germany but not by the Taoiseach. It is equally unacceptable that European civil servants should make decisions about budgetary matters in Ireland. The Taoiseach needs to rule out any further loss of fiscal powers. He needs to assure the Dáil and the citizens of the country that any treaty change will be put to the people in a referendum.

As I have said many times, I accept that the Government inherited the current disastrous economic situation as a result of the disastrous policies of the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government. However, this does not excuse the Government's failures. It has stuck steadfastly to the plan it inherited from the previous Government. As a newly elected Government, it had a chance to try to renegotiate the EU-IMF deal. It sought and, more importantly, received a mandate to go back to the European Union and the IMF to ask them to engage in such a renegotiation. It had an opportunity to tell the European Central Bank that Irish taxpayers would not pay the debts of gamblers and speculators.

Deputy McDonald and I raised this issue recently when we met the troika on behalf of Sinn Féin. Obviously, the European Central Bank has an issue with the repudiation of unguaranteed bonds. We told them that we would not pay them. The Taoiseach and the Minister should have told them the exact same thing, but they failed to do so. That failure is evident in today's payment of €700 million of taxpayers' money to Anglo Irish Bank bondholders, while citizens languish on hospital trolleys and in dole queues and other parts of the globe.

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