Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

To pick up on some of the points that have been made on all sides of the House, Deputy Joe Higgins referred to an earlier contribution I made, as did Deputy Niall Collins. Deputy Niall Collins mentioned that Mr. A. J. Chopra observed that what is important for Ireland in its programme is to achieve the elements on the bottom line and it is within our own power to work out the choices to get to that bottom line. What Mr. Chopra also said when he was here at an economic conference in Kerry in the late autumn was that it can be argued that the legacy debt in the banks in this country is debt that needs to be restructured and written down, more or less.

See this speech in context