Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The fact of the matter is that we are borrowing €16,000 million and there is only one source for it which has set down conditions for the money. We cannot continue not dealing with this problem. Deputy Adams seems to ignore this. Whether one has troika analysis or not we must deal with the problem here, and this is about good housekeeping and putting in place rules, conditions and regulations that will not allow in future the type of activity we had the past. We are not going back there. We want to see, and I am sure Deputy Adams does also even from his political perspective, that we run our affairs properly and in order like any household in the country and where we are spending much more than we are taking in we have a problem. In this sense the treaty is not an end to prosperity in itself; it is but one mechanism on the path to dealing with a return to growth of the European economies and the capacity of other economies to purchase. We export 80% of what we produce. In that sense the condition is that we must sort out our own problems ourselves.

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