Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. It is important to acknowledge the vote of the people in the recent referendum which was an indirect endorsement of the ESM. To boil it down into a very simple formula, the people decided that should we need money, it would be in our national interest to have access to that money. People were aware that the EFSF would run out in 2013, so a €500 billion fire wall makes sense.

I wish to digress from the national trend to that in my own county. I had a conversation with the Minister for Finance about this last night and mentioned that the "No" vote did not have it all its own way in County Donegal. In the Fanad peninsula, 50% voted "Yes" and 50% voted "No". On the evening of the vote, I met a couple of farmers along the road in Fanad who were certainly not supporters of mine or my party. One of the farmers said that rather than vote against the interests of the country and vote "No", they decided to stay at home instead. There was an element of that, especially in light of the 42% turnout. The general reaction of the people in Donegal, which must be recorded in this national Parliament, was that they were glad it was passed nationally. That is important to note.

In regard to the €500 billion fire wall, there is a danger countries will lapse back into bad habits in the expectation that if they get into bother again, money will be available. We must sound a note of caution in regard to the availability of such funding. We need a system for obtaining access to funding. We do not have powers to replicate what occurs in the United States or the United Kingdom in regard to quantitative easing; we must have something that works in the interest of the eurozone members. We must and will aspire to having the good housekeeping rules of countries such as Austria, Finland and the Netherlands, which have small deficits and low unemployment rates. It is part of the process of learning by doing. What we are doing has not been done before. We are learning by doing but we must work in co-operation to ensure our economy recovers.

When canvassing on the doorsteps throughout my constituency and among representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises, the concept of the domestic economy continued to arise. Members on each side of the House have stated we need a parallel growth strategy at EU level. That is a given and it must continue to be so. With deficit reductions and cutbacks in expenditure, be it current or capital, we need to invest money in the real economy. There is unbelievable resilience among the business community, including small and medium-sized enterprises. In Donegal, 90% of all businesses are small to medium in size. The resilience is second to none.

The overall aspiration and philosophy in business at present is to survive. There is an altruistic element whereby employers want to hold onto as many staff as possible. They want to work in partnership with their staff to ensure they stay in business. The business philosophy or model is one of survival; it is certainly not a question of profit or reinvesting money in various schemes. With that in mind, I endorse the Taoiseach's commitment, which is also that of the European Union, including the eurozone, to have a parallel growth strategy. Without it, everything else does not make sense.

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