Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Rating agencies are paid by financial organisations to measure risk. One should never expect rating agencies to come out singing and dancing and giving one a whole lot of good news because their business is to measure risk, which they are assessing constantly. The rating agencies do not say Irish paper is junk as we have a rating of BBB+. During the week, Fitch said that if Ireland got a significant deal on its debt, it would upgrade its rating to A. Therefore, we are moving in the right direction. Irish paper has a value. As a matter of fact, in the first half of today the NTMA sold three-month treasury bills worth €500 million and the rate achieved was 0.2%. This is the lowest rate at which any Irish Government ever raised funds on the market according to the Central Bank. We are, therefore, moving in the right direction. I acknowledge that some kind of deal on bank debt is probably being factored in. If we do not get a deal on the bank debt, the interest rates will move in the opposite direction.

The Commission, in its latest report, pointed out again the risks associated with our programme. Overall, it gave a strong endorsement of the progress we are making but it said there are still risks. I agree. All I have ever claimed is that we have made significant progress, but there are still risks. If we stop doing what we are doing, those risks will be realised and some event outside our control and our jurisdiction could occur that would magnify the problem. We certainly have not reached dry land and are still working on this. It is work in progress but progress is being made; that is all we are claiming. I assure the Deputy that we will continue to work on this and try to get the economy to grow and the growing economy to create more jobs. As the Deputy rightly identified, long-term unemployment is one of the significant corrosive elements in society. It is very hard to fix it once it gets into the system.

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