Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

I have dealt with all those issues as well. If the Deputy looks back at an interview I did in Brussels on Monday, which he can pull down on the RTE website, he will note that I dealt with all the wider issues. While I was not as alarmist as the Deputy was, I acknowledged the fact that there is a major problem in the eurozone at present because of the situation in Greece, but I was dealing with a different agenda at the Bloomberg conference - I was showing that the economic and banking connections between Ireland and Greece are very limited. I was doing it at a point where our nine year bond rate was moving up to 7.5% because there was a perception of a direct contagion effect. The effect is not a direct contagion one; the effect on Ireland is the consequences of a crisis in the euro because of the situation in Greece, and I have dealt with that. I understand the position in so far as anybody understands it, but the Deputy should not ascribe to me views which I do not hold.

See this speech in context