Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour)

It is very fitting that the previous speaker mentioned so many sub-Saharan countries. Ireland is now beholden to the IMF which shows us where it is in the scale of freedom and sovereignty. The people of Zimbabwe under Mugabe's rule were praying for an institution such as the IMF to come in and help them because some people were starving billionaires.

It is with great disgust that I acknowledge the IMF is in this country and it will be a great day when we remove it. In light of the position we are in, I am glad it is able to assist us. We have developed a form of friendship, if one can call it that, with the IMF that will be an ally to us, along with the ECB. There is an understanding that austerity does not create prosperity. It has acknowledged that there must be some form of write-down and quantitative easing, something I believe in.

One has to look at the IMF in the context of our country being part of the ECB arrangement. A lot of rhetoric comes from the other side of the House about passing on ECB interest rate reductions. It is a complex matter. For example, Ulster Bank operates in Ireland but 3% of its capital is funded from the ECB funding. When people talk about passing on interest rate cuts to the generation of stressed mortgage holders, of which I am one, it is not a simple matter. A reduction of 0.25% cannot be passed on because in some cases as little as 3% of overall funding is involved.

The IMF was set up after the Second World War. It did a lot of good and kept a stable world economy. The Bretton Woods agreement fell apart in 1971 as a result of the credit bubble. It culminated in the current banking disaster. In the end there was one third the amount of gold bullion actually needed held in Fort Knox which was inextricably linked to the US dollar, the base currency of the world at the time.

If there is anything to be learned from the current disaster it is that the IMF and institutions like it need to put regulations in place to stop hyperinflation, credit default swaps and markets protecting themselves. The behaviour of the Tories over the past number of weeks is not encouraging. They are happy to have an entirely free market in London when we have seen what the transfer of capital without regulation means to countries such as Ireland.

The ECB will have to listen to the IMF a little bit more. It is not good enough that Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy are meeting and determining the fate of our currency. The IMF can have a role to play within European institutions. It is disingenuous to say it should not exist.

I am a member of the OSCE parliamentary assembly and this morning we met a small delegation. It was the only independent body able to independently assess the elections in Russia as being inaccurate and improper. If the IMF looked at departments of finance with the same level of scrutiny, we would be in a much better state than we are in currently. It is an international monetary fund and we operate in international markets.

This Bill is simply for housekeeping purposes. It will be a great day for the country when the IMF is no longer seated in this House and we are no longer accountable to it. I commend the current Government on the efforts it is making. We are in a black hole and it will take a long time to get out of it. There are bank guarantees in place which should not be. They were in place prior to the IMF agreement. We have to use the same ladder to get out of the hole with which we went into it.

We will all work as much as we can, roll up our sleeves and try to dig the country out of the hole but it will not be easy. Unfortunately, more austerity is coming. I raised the issue of quantitative easing with the Minister at a committee meeting. Prosperity will not be achieved through austerity but by having more money in the economy.

I wish the House a very happy Christmas.

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