Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

When we enter into commitments, we are expected to honour our commitments. That is part of the agreement worked out last Wednesday by the 27 member states and the 17 eurozone states. It is also relevant that the ECB has forked out €150 billion for Irish banks and that it continues to provide finance that pays nurses, gardaí, public servants and everybody else. It has also extended that from short-term funding to 12 month funding. The rationale is that if we do not pay, we ruin our reputation and destroy the possibility of continued further investment in here.

I listened to Deputy Boyd Barrett, who has since vacated the House since making rather hysterical comments about having an export growth policy. Clearly, exports account for 100% of our GDP. Is the Deputy seriously suggesting that we should not continue to grow exports on an island nation where one element of the growth of our economy is critically dependant on exports? The other element is to stimulate our indigenous economy.

I cannot tell the Deputy who are the bondholders. I do not know who they are. There is some anecdotal evidence of the categories of bondholders, be they pension funds, hedge funds or whatever. That is the nature of the bond market. They buy and sell on a regular basis. I do not know the names of the individuals. A deep analysis could give us the category of those who purchase these bonds and sell them on.

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