Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It does say that. One must look at what it states.

There was a reason the Irish situation was mentioned separately and the reference was made to Ireland as a "special case" in the communiqué. That reason is straightforward. First, it was because the Irish taxpayer was required to take on the burden of the bank debt, wrongly in my opinion, but that is an argument of history we can probably debate at another time. Second, it was required to do that in advance of the new mechanisms which are now in place, like the ESM, being in place at the time. Third, it is a special case because of the huge sacrifice of the Irish people in paying for the taking on of that burden. That special nature of our case, particularly the burden the people have taken on, is acknowledged.

We have to work this through now. We must work through the detailed negotiations with the ECB, the Commission and the troika and for that we must have political support across capitals in Europe. That is something that has been a consistent part of what we have been doing since the Government was established. There are two elements to what we have been doing. One element has been to advance our individual national case on improving the debt sustainability of Ireland. The other thing we have been doing, and we should not lose sight of this, is we have been helping to change the way in which Europe has been addressing the situation. Some of the instruments now in place were not in place at the time. They had to be worked for, for example, the establishment of the ESM and the advancement of banking union on which we had to secure political agreement. There is a much broader political agreement now at European Council level and across European capitals than was the case at the beginning of this whole exercise.

Two processes have been running in parallel and we must continue with that. One is that we have been using our position to influence the shape of European policy and where it is going. Then, by doing that we are creating the space for a deal to be struck which will improve Ireland's debt sustainability and secure the best possible deal for the Irish taxpayer.

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