Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government's engagement with our European partners and its approach to the discussions has always been constructive and consensual. This approach has been successful to date and, by meeting our commitments and engaging in constructive dialogue with our European partners, we expect to achieve a result. An agreed basis for the renegotiation of the IBRC promissory notes would be the next step on the road to achieving full market access for Ireland by the end of 2013 and would serve to re-emphasise the positive achievements of the Government to date.

Given the critical point at which we now find ourselves, it would not be in our best interests to take unilateral action without the support of our European partners, as proposed by the Opposition motion. To do so when we hope to reach a positive result for the State through constructive dialogue would be nonsensical and would result in negative repercussions for the State and the Irish taxpayer.

Our programme is working. We have met all of our targets to date and have met the quantitative fiscal targets. We beat our deficit targets in 2011 and 2012. We have implemented financial sector restructuring and deleveraging. We achieved banking recapitalisation at a significantly lower cost than initially envisaged.

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