Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister for his reply. The Minister regards this as a hypothetical situation and he does not wish to add to it but none of us wants to see the collapse of the eurozone or of the euro. However, we need to realise that decisive action must be taken that is different from the current type of action. The eurozone is like the Titanic and the damage is so great that unless it is patched up very speedily it will slowly sink. The Minister's job as Minister for Finance is to ensure that there are enough lifeboats and that they are operational in order to get the Irish people to dry land. The Minister says he does not want to add to the speculation but the German finance Minister is able to say when questioned that the Germans are developing contingency plans for a collapse of the euro. He told one media outlet: "We would be a horrible government if we did not think through what it needs to do if things go wrong." If the German finance Minister can talk about developing these contingency plans, why do we not do the same?

I have one supplementary question. The Minister knows fine well the position of Italy, Spain and France. He replied to a question of mine on a previous occasion by saying the Department of Finance is discussing these matters. I ask if he is developing plans. Is there any co-ordination between other Ministers for Finance in other states, some of whom are developing plans?

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