Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

If he reads the stability treaty, and I know from the past that he is a good reader, he will see it states on page 9:

STRESSING the importance of the Treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism as an element of a global strategy to strengthen the Economic and Monetary Union and POINTING OUT that the granting of assistance in the framework of new programmes under the European Stability Mechanism will be conditional, as of 1 March 2013, on the ratification of this Treaty by the Contracting Party concerned and, as soon as the transposition period mentioned in Article 3(2) has expired, on compliance with the requirements of this Article,...

It is perfectly clear, as the chairman of the independent referendum commission has pointed out, that only those countries that ratify this fiscal stability treaty will have access to the ESM. It is difficult to predict accurately what the scale and nature of each individual country's plan will be to get down to 60% and 0.5% starting after 2019 because the growth figures that will be driven from this country will have a dramatic impact on the scale of that. We had this previously. I regard it as reprehensible for Deputy Higgins to stand up in this House as an elected representative and condemn the chairman of the independent Referendum Commission and accuse him of being inaccurate in his statements to the public.

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