Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Not one cent more is going in than what was already committed. I said this morning that it was not possible for us to rearrange this particular deal, which was done by the previous Government, without the consent of the ECB. I am going to quote something I think the Deputy should hear. It comes from the late, lamented Brian Lenihan, speaking in this House in November 2010 and it is about the issue of senior bondholders not being in the memorandum of understanding. He said the following:

There has been much commentary about the need for senior bondholders to accept their share of the burden of this crisis. I certainly raised this matter in the course of the negotiations, and the unanimous view of the ECB and the Commission was and is that no programme would be possible if it were intended by us to dishonour senior debt... The strongly held belief among our European partners is that any move to impose burden sharing on this group of investors would have the potential to create a huge wave of further negative market sentiment towards the eurozone and its bank system. That apprehension was confirmed by Professor Honohan in an interview last Monday, when he said there was no enthusiasm in Europe for this course of action... There is simply no way that this country, whose banks are so dependent on international investors, can unilaterally renege on senior bondholders against the wishes of the ECB.

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