Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

The decision by the troika not to meet Opposition party members on this occasion was a decision made and announced by the troika. They make their own arrangements when they come here on how they will relate to different groups in society, different Departments and so on. That is what they have done on this occasion.

On the programme, the first thing we always do is to have a general weighting to set the scene, and we had that yesterday afternoon. They gave their view of how the programme was proceeding and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, and I gave the Government view of how the programme was proceeding. Following that, there are then a series of meetings with officials, principally from the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform but also from other Departments.

The first task is to see whether, at the end of the quarter, the Irish Government has fulfilled all the conditions in the memorandum of understanding. When one fulfils the conditions, which we have done, that is a bit of a box-ticking exercise, and it only becomes an issue if one has not fulfilled the conditions. However, it is a very important box-ticking exercise because unless one ticks the boxes, funds can be withheld. Therefore, one needs to meet all the conditions of the memorandum of understanding for the quarter before one can draw down funds from the various funds in the future. We then look to the future as well and, obviously, we will have full discussions on that later in the week or early next week.

See this speech in context