Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

I thank the Sinn Féin Party for moving this motion this evening. It gives me the opportunity to put some material in the public domain. First, there is a matter I wish to bring to the attention of the House as the Government has always committed itself to informing the Dáil about any development concerning the payment of the promissory note at the end of this month.

In recent months we have been involved in technical discussions on reducing the burden of debt associated with the recapitalisation of the banks. In particular, our focus has been on the promissory note arrangement that was put in place to fund the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, formerly known as Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. This is an arrangement that requires the State to make cash payments of €3.06 billion each year to IBRC. There have been some developments on this issue during the day. The discussion with the European authorities on the general issue continues but we are also negotiating with the EU authorities and principally with the European Central Bank, ECB, on the basis that the €3 billion cash instalment due from the Minister for Finance to IBRC on 31 March 2012 under the terms of the IBRC promissory note could be settled by the delivery of a long-term Irish Government bond. The details of the arrangement have still to be worked out, but are being worked out.

I will now turn to the core of the motion before the House, the Government's extremely constructive engagement with the EU on whether we wish to put in place appropriate support mechanisms at European level. We all know these are needed, so I will recap on how Europe has reached its current position.

Europe, and indeed the broader global economy, has been in the throes of an economic and financial crisis for a number of years now. The approach of providing support mechanisms started with the Greek loan facility in early 2010. That was a specific measure for Greece. It was followed quickly by action to put in place a more general support facility, the EFSF, which could be used for any euro area member state. This was a temporary mechanism which will expire in 2013. It turned out that Ireland was the next country to require assistance, in late 2010.

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