Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

The best way to understand this is that Europe works in different ways at different times. Sometimes it examines the details of a problem and comes up with solutions and the sign-off is at the highest political level. At other times, when little progress is being made on the detail, the Heads of State and Government at the highest political level make a statement of principle in which they set out the principles of a policy and they then delegate the working out of that statement of principle. This is what has happened on this occasion and they have delegated the working out of the principle. However, there should not be any great surprise in this regard. Some Members present attended the meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform at which I gave the pre-meeting briefing before attending the ECOFIN Council. Both Deputies Michael McGrath and Pearse Doherty pressed me on what was Ireland's negotiating position and I stated the Government was trying to separate bank debt from sovereign debt and was trying to ensure there would be retrospective effects whereby any advantage that was granted to Spain also would apply to Ireland. In the process of the negotiation, since the Spanish situation is in need of an immediate solution whereas Ireland is working a programme and is not in particular crisis at present, the movement will be to deal with Spain. Thereafter, the Government will ascertain what are the details in this regard. This will give the Government a fairly strong negotiating position to apply similar solutions to Ireland, because it will invoke the clause of equality of treatment for people in similar circumstances.

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