Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This could be a defining issue for the fate of the Government and the opinion of people in its performance, and so far the omens are not good. For a long period of time the Government has been conducting a negotiation which has been singularly unsuccessful. There is evidence, from the international media, from Europe and from leaks from the European Central Bank, ECB, that already the Government's proposals have been rejected out of hand by the powers that be in Europe.

It seems that the danger of humiliation before 31 March is extremely acute. The Government is proposing that the promissory notes' repayments should be extended for many years and instead of the Government taking a political hit now, that the children and grandchildren of Ireland should take the hit for them, in other words, they are seeking a solution which spares their own political blushes in the immediate period but means that future generations must pay for the blunders of bankers in the past.

The motion looks for a fundamental change in Government policy in its approach to the Anglo Irish Bank promissory notes. It is wrong for anyone to state, as the amendment does by implication, that it is too late.

In March 2012, a deal was cobbled together at the last minute to save the Government's face. This year there is still time - nearly eight weeks - for the Government to go to the ECB, the Commission, Chancellor Merkel and others and state it has changed its policy, it no longer believes it pays to be craven, to be good Europeans and to be the poster boy of Europe, that it is taking a stand on behalf of the people of Ireland and, for once, it will put Irish people first.

It seems that the negotiations are now in chaos. If international reports are to be believed, only a few days ago - maybe a week or two - the European Central Bank threw out the Government's long-term proposal that there should be a long-dated bond of perhaps 40 years which would extend the loans for a period, which would relieve the Government of embarrassment but which would not make any difference to the capital sum, which we are asking to be changed in this motion.

Perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, can tell the House, because there is so little information coming from the Government today, whether a Government plan was torpedoed after 13 months by the ECB within the past few weeks. Did they say, "No, this is monetary financing", in other words, printing money? Did they say, it is not acceptable and to go back to the drawing board? Is the Government in a position where it will come to the Irish people within a few weeks and present a completely new deal as some great triumph?

No doubt a deal will be done but it will be a humiliation for Ireland unless the Government takes note of this motion. What we have seen in the past 13 months, after a series of false dawns, new promises and over-egged puddings, is a pattern of humiliation. It is not only what happened this time last year when we had been promised so clearly that a deal would come and that it would be presented to us, that at the last minute they had to cobble something together. It is the number of deadlines that have been missed as politicians from the other side of the House, Ministers and others, have stated that a deal is nearby. We were promised one in October. We were promised one later. We have been promised optimistic noises. That pattern, I suggest, is about to come to a climax when at the end of this month we get a very bad deal which will be portrayed as some sort of a triumph.

That pattern is being repeated as well in the story of the legacy debt which, in May last, was greeted as a game changer. Ever since then, that pattern has been repeated as the Government has been in retreat in the face of opposition from the Finns, the Germans and the Dutch who have stated that issue of legacy debt is not one on which they share the Government's interpretation.

The chickens are coming home to roast for us because, consistently as a nation, we are back-tracking in our dealings with the European Union and with the ECB. Thirteen months of negotiation have yielded nothing. The Government is in a position where somehow it must come up with something to present as a triumph. It will be interesting to see if the Government can do so.

We on this side of the House are looking for something far more radical. We are looking for the Government to challenge Europe - to say not "Yes" but "No", to say not that we will do what we are told but that we are a nation that has ideas and that stands on certain principles one of which is that this debt, for which the promissory notes are some palliative, is not a debt owed by the Irish people. It is a debt which is owed by the banks, both of which have gone bankrupt, and which the Irish people should not be paying and have no moral obligation to pay.

One need only observe the panic that has existed in political circles in recent weeks to realise that what I am saying is evidenced by statements from Ministers. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Gilmore, went out to South America and was reported there as saying that if a deal was not agreed, it would be catastrophic. He was informally reported to have warned, in various capitals of the world, that if a deal was not agreed, the Government might fall and there would be a general election. Of course, that contrasts strongly with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte's, statement that a deal would be done. I think Deputy Rabbitte is correct. A deal - the colour of the deal will be humiliating - will be done, but why would a Minister of the Government regard it as a threat to his European partners that the Government would fall? Why should they care? They care because they regard the Government as complicit, an easy mark, and made up of Ministers who negotiate with their hands behind their back and accept.

It is an effective weapon to play, if one is the puppet of European leaders and the people are one's pawns, and that is the position in which, I am afraid, we find ourselves. If the Government's only weapon is to go out and state, "If you let us down, we will go out of power", it is playing the wrong game.

I do not believe Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande or any of the other powerful people in Europe want to see this Government out of power. Why should they? They will never get another Government as compliant to their wishes. It is a pushover in negotiations in Europe not only on the legacy debt but also on the Anglo Irish Bank promissory notes. It is time it stood up for Ireland and said that we are unwilling, as this motion states, and unable as a nation to pay this debt.

The Government will come back and claim that the ATMs will be empty and that there is a threat of terrible economic war from the ECB and Europe. I wonder. The Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, was asked that question at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. He said that the ATMs would continue to work. The threat of economic war is one that has never been tested or challenged. However, we want to transfer this problem. We want to say that the debt should be shared among the European nations because it is not solely ours. At the moment the Government's attitude is quite simple. It claims that debt is the debt of Irish people and we accept it. I do not accept it is the debt of Irish people nor do others in our group. We believe it should be shared by the heads of the nations of those who are equally responsible because others were responsible for lending at a banking level, not at a people's or taxpayers' level. It is bankers who were responsible for making these loans and the governments of all the nations of Europe bear a responsibility for this.

We should not be ashamed about asking for a write-off and we should not be intimidated. I am sick and tired of that being painted, in a derogatory way, as default. Let us go in and negotiate it. Let us not pay it because it is not ours. Let us be unashamedly in favour of sharing that debt with others.

We have seen a long pattern of a Government over-egging the pudding. We have seen the hopes of the Irish people being raised extraordinarily high. The statement by Ministers that a good deal would be done is a terrible hostage to fortune. The Government, which has raised people's expectations to such a high level, now finds it may not be able to deliver. There will be a high price to pay if people are disappointed by this because the expectation in people's minds is that if a good deal is done on the promissory notes, relief will come to Ireland's taxpayers and social welfare recipients in the next budget. That patently will not happen if we pursue the course we are pursuing at present. It patently will not happen if we do not get a deal which involves write-off. What is so disappointing about Government policy is that the Taoiseach threw in the towel before he even started and never even looked for a write-off. That means the Government is simply looking to extend and pretend.

I believe we are on the brink of signing up for a very long-term economic disaster. We should think of future generations before we take this extraordinary step. Before we transfer the debt we should think of the consequences for people down the line, some of whom are not even born yet.

I am deeply disappointed by the Government's amendment, which is bland and uninformative in stating: "recognises that the current negotiation approach is the best course of action in order to achieve agreement with our European partners". I want to hear from the Minister for Finance what the current approach is. What has been achieved in the past 13 months? What has the Government got and what will it offer the people before 31 March? I believe we need a radical change in policy - a U-turn that puts the interests of the Irish people first and not those of Europe, which challenges the powers that be in Europe and tells them it is not our debt, we will not pay it and we cannot pay it."

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