Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

In answer to what I believe will happen, I was here for five months listening to people shouting to me that we would never get a reduction in the interest rate, but we did. Negotiation with the European authorities is a lengthy process that goes inch by inch. We are moving it forward inch by inch. My present objective is to seek a reduction in the overall burden of the debt on the shoulders of the taxpayers. There are various approaches and various ways in which that could be delivered, of which working on the promissory note for Anglo Irish Bank is just one. I believe it will be a medium-term project rather than an immediate one.

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