Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----whether we will see investment in growth. Let us remind ourselves that the Government's proposal is a U-turn on the claims following the European Council meeting in June that there would be a deal on legacy debt by October. That month has come and gone, as has 2012, yet there is still no deal on legacy debt. Neither is there a separation, an idea to which the Government was converted after rubbishing Sinn Féin's championing of the need to separate banking debt from sovereign debt. On the contrary and even on a cursory reading, the Bill will turn bad banking debt into sovereign debt. The Bill reads: "And whereas the winding up of the IBRC is necessary to resolve the debt of the IBRC to the Central Bank of Ireland". No one should be surprised. This Government promised that it would not give another red cent to bad banks.

Then, in one of its first acts as a Government, it paid €3.1 billion to Anglo Irish Bank. Despite our best wishes and us willing the Government to do well, this is no game-changer or seismic shift. The critical issue was never whether there would be a deal; it was what type of deal would be done. Sinn Féin has long advocated a deal that would remove the toxic banking debt from the shoulders of Irish citizens. That is not what is being proposed. This is not a write-down. The Government never asked for a write-down. It never negotiated for one and it did not seek one. The overall stock of the debt remains the same. With interest, it might be larger. The Government might be winding up Anglo Irish Bank as an institution but not its debt. Sinn Féin does not accept that restructuring or paying the debt over a longer timeframe is a credible deal for the taxpayer. The fact is, as the Minister said in opposition, the promissory note should not be paid. It should not be paid for the simple reason we cannot afford to pay it.

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