Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

It seems to me that a single vague sentence referring to this country and generally praising the horrific austerity our people have been suffering to bail out bankers and bondholders is not massively strong ground on which to build. In respect of the national debt, the Minister did not indicate how this will have an impact in respect of a separation of banking debt and sovereign debt. Will the funding of the European Stability Mechanism, ESM, and the contingent liability to the State of up to €11 billion be affected by this agreement and if so, how will it be affected? How will the funding this State is obliged to put into the fund be affected by the proposal that has been agreed on in Brussels?

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