Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This Bill is nothing but a cover to move the promissory notes from this supposed bank to the ECB. If the Members opposite vote for this Bill, it will crystallise this as national debt.

It will facilitate a situation whereby the Minister will be able to turn something that is not our debt into a long-term mortgage. We were told by the Minister, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, and the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, that our debt was not sustainable and that something would have to be done about it. How much money is this going to save us per year? Is it going to save us €1 billion? No, it is not. Is it going to save us €800 million? Perhaps, at most. If our debt was unsustainable before that and this is the Government's deal, how does it make the debt any more sustainable? It makes it very marginally more sustainable but it does not actually reduce our debt burden which is something the Government was mandated to do. Unfortunately, the Government has not done that.

The sad thing is that we have now put in our lot with a group of nations who have proven that in our time of need, they are not our friends. We have signed up to ESM so that in the future we can help them to bail out their banks but because our crisis happened before ESM was put in place, we will have to accept the debt burden. We have to take a massive proportion of the European banking debt and in the future, our citizens may have to bail out European banks that go bust.

The problem started with joining the euro. People like Anthony Coughlan warned, on the day Deputies were waving around the euro notes and laughing, that it would end in tears. The European Union set up a Frankenstein currency, with interest rates low when it suited the Germans and high when they wanted them high. The interest rates never suited us.

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