Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

It concentrated on the German agenda of fiscal rules alone. This is a bank that raised interest rates after a recession had started and risked creating a depression by raising them before it was over. It is so obsessed with the idea that targeting an inflation rate of close to, but below, 2% is the answer to every problem that it has even produced an iPhone application in which hitting this target delivers high growth, full employment and the award of central banker of the year.

The ECB's moves relating to longer-term financing for the banking system are welcome, but they are not enough. They ignore the causes of the uncertainty, which is making capital flee European banks. The exposure of these banks to sovereign debt is a huge cause of uncertainty about future risk. This new financing is treating a symptom but not the cause. Equally, the bank's secondary market purchase of bonds continues to enable investors to leave the market as their perception of the risk to the primary bond market continues to grow. The ECB is willing to spend an extraordinary amount of money on protecting the banking system and reducing yields in the market for existing sovereign debt. If much of this was even theoretically available to the primary debt market, the crisis would be over in the morning. The arguments against allowing this are now devoid of credibility.

There are indications that yesterday's Spanish bond auction was aided by international co-ordination. Its impact is very welcome but all evidence shows that a failure to change the basic policies will leave the underlying problem unchanged. After every past summit, co-ordinated interventions have delivered nothing more than short-term relief. Within the existing rules, this could be done by giving a banking licence to the EFSF. In the longer term there should be a treaty change to include economic growth in the European Central Bank's mandate and to explicitly allow it to buy sovereign debt. It is inexplicable that the Taoiseach and others did not even raise the issue last week. I strongly encourage him to return to the Council on this issue. It is one on which it is worth fighting a referendum, if that is what is required.

The bringing forward of the ESM's start date is welcome, as is the agreement to provide Europe-specific funding to the IMF. Taken together, however, they are no firewall. They involve having funding ready to provide bailouts while the ECB continues to drive countries into needing those bailouts. They also amount to little more than a year's worth of funding for the three countries under the most pressure at present. After the failure of the October package, the leaders simply came up with a different way to fund the package. They did not take any additional radical decisions.

Another item missing from the agenda was the creation of funding to support development and stimulate the European economy during downturns. Fiscal control does not amount to a fiscal union. The Taoiseach was correct to raise the fact that the debt which Ireland took on as part of a common European Union approach should be recognised through a significant refinancing. I believe these debts should be at both a low rate and of a long duration. They are the core of our debt issues.

Mixed messages from the Government about debt sustainability, easy agreement to the fiscal control agenda and the failure to have any diplomatic initiative have not helped negotiations. It still not too late, however. The Government should significantly ramp up its efforts on this matter.

As can be seen from the text of the Merkel-Sarkozy agreement last week and from the daily comments from senior French Government sources, the people who directly drove this agreement see it as a means of forcing the harmonisation of corporate taxes. The current legal position is clear. Ireland has the right to decide its corporate tax rate and rules. Whether this remains the case under the deal will become clear when we see the text, but the Government's failure to put it in the deal must be a concern. Equally, the threat to our financial services sector is undeniable. Those driving intergovernmentalism have made it clear that it is part of their agenda-----

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