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

A guarantee is a guarantee and we tend to honour them. That is not the primary issue, which is the promissory note process. That is where the commitment was made by the previous Government. There was an arrangement to repay the funding provided by the European Central Bank through emergency liquidity funding for the Central Bank of Ireland. The money which kept the IBRC where it is was provided by the European Central Bank, so the circle is being completed. It is the principal creditor at one remove, although its agent in Ireland is the Central Bank of Ireland. There is no issue.

Deputy Donnelly asked what the Bill does. It allows me to appoint a special liquidator to liquidate the IBRC and part of that liquidator's functions will be to sell existing assets, with the purchaser of last - and perhaps only - resort will be NAMA. It does not do anything else. We are not debating any kind of deal done between the Government and the ECB tonight or the form it may take. I appreciate that there is much speculation about this but no deal has been done.

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