Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Tá mé an-sásta go bhfuil an tseans seo againn díospóireacht a bheith againn ar an ábhar tabhachtach seo ar an nóta gealltanais do Bhanc Angla Éireannach. As Deputy Doherty said, paying €31 billion in promissory notes to Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building society is reckless in the extreme. Tá polasaí díluchtú agus lochtach á n-oibriú ag Páirtí an Lucht Oibre agus ag Fine Gael. It was reckless when the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government signed up the taxpayer to this toxic private banking debt and it is reckless for Fine Gael and the Labour Party to continue to support its payment. Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building Society engaged in speculative lending to the extent that they brought the State to the edge of bankruptcy. These banks no longer exist, but they have been merged to form the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. Figures provided by the Minister for my colleague, Deputy Doherty, show that the cost of the promissory notes will ultimately be €74.63 billion by the time they are paid off in 2031. Baineann sé seo leis na h-aisíocaíochtaí caipitiúla do Anglo Irish Bank and an suim sa bhreis ar na rátaí úis ar an mhéid iasachtaí atá i gceist. This is a staggering amount of money, equating to almost half the total Government debt this year and over one third of Government debt when we reach our peak debt-to-GDP ratio in the next few years. Ní féidir leis an Stát íoc as seo. Ní féidir le cáin íocoirí íoc as an bhfiacha mór seo.

Paying off the promissory notes calls into question the State's ability to manage the rest of its debt. It is time for the Government to state categorically that it will not pay these promissory notes and to begin negotiations with the ECB to achieve this end. Last week we saw the Government allow the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to hand over more than €700 million of taxpayers' money to unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders and there are plans to pay another bond worth €1.25 billion in January. This means that within three months the Government will have paid to unguaranteed bondholders the equivalent amount of money it plans to strip away from public services in December's budget, taking money from the elderly, the sick, children with special needs and low and middle income families. This is wrong and does not make sense. It is economic madness. It is bad Government policy and must be stopped. The debt mountain is strangling the economy and will impede recovery for years to come, beyond the lifetime of the Government. It must change tack now.

According to the forecasts outlined in the Government's medium-term fiscal statement released last Friday, the State's debt is due to peak at 118% of GDP by 2013. However, as we have seen under the Minister's watch and many other Ministers, Government forecasts for growth have been notoriously unreliable and are continually being revised downwards. If this continues to be the case, the debt-to-GDP ratio will spiral out of control. This will hamper recovery as the burden of servicing the excessive debt continues to rise. This year the burden of debt servicing amounted to 14% of tax revenues and will rise to 20% in the next few years.

As the Minister knows - it is a calculation or choice being made by the Government - high debt levels caused by the policy of the Government and its predecessor in placing the burden of private banking debt on the shoulders of taxpayers have put the economy in a dangerous position. Ní féidir linn na fiacha seo a íoc agus ní fiacha na ndaoine iad. It is the debt of private bankers. There is no bailout for hospitals, for people on the dole or for those young people who have been obliged to emigrate across the globe. However, there is a bailout for private bankers and speculators and this should stop.

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