Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Government has a strategy which is focused on the re-engineering of our debt position for longer-term, lower interest rates. That has been set out by the Minister for Finance and by every other Minister for quite some time. The first element of the promissory note negotiations that are taking place, as the Deputy is aware, is to move the deadline to 2025. Clearly, I do not claim credit for the discussions that are now taking place in Europe about the ESM, although this Government was one of the first to table that matter, which has now become a central focus of the discussions by many leaders on how to deal with the European response to the European problem. Ireland has a year longer than Spain to reach the 3% target. Spain has its own challenges which were set out by the Prime Minister when he made a connection about the €100 billion loan for the bank position in Spain last weekend.

Ireland's position is to continue to negotiate complex issues with the troika with a view to bringing about a re-engineering of that debt problem, thus easing the position for all our people. The problem was initially caused by the incompetence of a previous government. From that perspective there is a clear strategy, which is to continue to negotiate and reach an agreement to achieve that target of lower interest rates in the longer term.

Deputy McDonald said the strategy was to wait and see but that is far from the case. Ireland has been in a bailout programme for quite some time and we have successfully renegotiated elements of it, with two Ministers engaging with the troika. I would remind the Deputy that the IMF, the head of the European Commission, and Commissioner Rehn have all stated that Ireland will continue to have support in the context of negotiations to reduce our debt problem and bring this to a conclusion. I was happy to note Commissioner Rehn's strong and clear statement yesterday. Deputy McDonald can take it that the Government will follow that through to bring to a conclusion, hopefully successfully, our objective of reducing that debt burden which is currently on the backs of our taxpayers and citizens.

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