Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask everybody in this House to pay attention to these matters and to inform themselves rather than get distracted by the traditional accusation and counter accusation. We have to bring the truth of the problem to Germany. I will explain this matter of re-engineering more than 40 years of promissory notes very quickly and then I will sit down. The 40 year proposal for a bond means that, instead of a promissory note over ten years, the people of Ireland say they will take on a debt they do not owe to anybody. Fundamentally there is a problem in this. Why should we re-engineer and lengthen a debt that is not properly presentable to the people of Ireland? It is wrong. A 40 year bond at a lower interest rate will become an asset of a busted bank, the IBRC, and will earn income at the lower rate over 40 years while being used as security on a loan from the ECB. The loan from the ECB will repay the emergency liquidity assistance from the Central Bank of Ireland. It is all a nonsense of mirrors. We have to stop this nonsense and say we do not owe at least €70 billion to the ECB or the Central Bank because the origin of that money was the redemption of bonds that should not and could not be repaid from the resources of the banks in which they were invested. We have taken not one hit but €70 billion for Europe and that is wrong. We have to get that fundamental message across.

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