Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

On behalf of the Technical Group, I express our sympathy to Deputy Ó Cuív on the death of his mother.

I welcome the absence of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and I wish them well on their trip to the United States.

However, I hope they are not saying the same things in the United States as they say here. They started off badly by making exaggerated claims about the economy here which will not have credibility overseas.

Last night, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, the leader of the Labour Party, claimed the fact that a very daring and audacious fund manager had put €2.5 billion into Irish bonds was a very positive sign. He ought to be careful in what he says. That particular fund is at the bottom of its peer group in terms of performance in the United States. It withdrew from the Irish Financial Services Centre, IFSC, three years ago and it is not a fund with which we would necessarily wish to be associated. It has also taken a massive punt on Hungary.

Second, I beg the Taoiseach not to promote the line he has been peddling on the bond markets in the United States again. Last week, he claimed in this House and elsewhere that the fact there had been a very small bond swap from one bond to another was a great victory for Ireland in the bond markets. What actually happened is that the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, twisted the arms of various Irish banks and forced them to take this swap. It was not a genuine move.

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