Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The Taoiseach says he does not know the names of the bondholders. With respect, that is not good enough. It is a disgrace. He says we say there is another way. That is correct; we believe there is another way. What happened to the five point pln and promise of openness when in government? The deference the Taoiseach shows to the bondholders contrasts sharply with the Government's attitude to citizens. We heard yesterday from Dr. Gerry Burke, a consultant obstetrician in Limerick, who warned that the loss of 47 midwives in the mid-western regional maternity hospital in Limerick next month might cost lives. Ministers wax lyrical about the awful consequences if we do not pay the bonds. Do they give any consideration to the social consequences?

This morning I wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General, asking him to investigate these payments, to whom they will be made, the profits to be made and whether he considers this to be an appropriate use of public funds. The Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, said, "If the Taoiseach's Government knew that Anglo Irish Bank was insolvent and asked the Irish taxpayer to bail it out and pay the cost we are now paying for it, that was and is economic treason. I stand over that." Does he still support that proposition? Will the Taoiseach find the names of the bondholders before we have to search to establish who they are?

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