Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

As I said, when this text is finalised and agreed as putting the substance on the political agreement last Friday, the process by which it is implemented will not be the central issue; it is how effective it will be in having every country do its own work properly. Leaders will say that in the past we made agreements and signed on for conditions that were never adhered to and countries went off and did what they wanted. Now it is a case of countries measuring up in the way they do their fiscal competence.

I was able to inform the Council from first hand experience of the reaction in this country. When the troika examined the last quarter's performance to release the next tranche of money, it was so close to the budget that they wanted an indication of what going to happen in the 2012 budget. As the House will be aware, the Commission leaked that document in error or whatever to the budgetary committee of the Bundestag, which caused rightly holy hell not only here, but abroad. That point was strongly and clearly accepted by leaders around that table because there would be no point in having sovereign governments with a democratic responsibility to act on behalf of their people if Deputy Boyd Barrett's central bureau dictated all these things.

In response to Deputy Higgins, there is no intention of having somebody draft the budget for the Irish people. That is the legal responsibility of the elected Government of the people and that is the way it will be. However, one must be able to say what one's trend is and if one is going to be out of line, people will say, "I think you are headed in the wrong direction". It is our responsibility to do that here.

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