Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour) | Oireachtas source

From the outset the bank guarantee, the promissory notes and the regulation of the Central Bank were all bad deals for the country. As the previous speaker said, it is one hell of a deep hole out of which we are trying to dig ourselves. The economist Seamus Coffey said about the ECB deal:

The is little doubt that the new arrangement is anything other than a gain for the State. And unless your expectations were incredibly unrealistic (or more accurately based on fantasy), yesterday's announcements were pretty much as good as could have been hoped for given the institutional constraints faced.

Esteemed but non-celebrity economists such as Karl Whelan, Stephen Kinsella and Colm McCarthy used their expertise to say this was the best deal for the State. Not only have the Ministers done the right thing for the country, the backbenchers have too. It has not been easy implementing the programme for Government and the EU-IMF programme which was non-negotiable according to Fianna Fáil during the last general election. We now have a saving of €20 billion. While we cannot celebrate that people will be better off immediately, they will not be as badly off as they were going to be.

I compliment the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. The officials in the Department of Finance have done a sterling job in putting the country first. Speaking about people putting the country first, the job done by the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, must be borne in mind. Not only has he put his entire focus on redeeming the sovereignty of the State, he has done so with a write-down of his salary, a point not lauded by the press or the media.

The supporters of a debt write-down are living in a fantasy world. Under the Maastricht treaty, monetary financing of any EU member state is illegal. If one used this position in the negotiations with the ECB, not only would one not get a deal but the country's economic credibility would be dashed. The amount of money the promissory note was put in place for was money that was drawn down by Irish banks and subsequently pumped into the economy which was inflated and unrealistic at the time.

With our reputation in tatters two years ago, the Christian democrat and social democrat leaders in Europe needed to be approached. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade set about approaching his social democrat counterparts, as did the Taoiseach with his Christian democrat counterparts. The diplomatic offensive conducted by the Government cannot be underestimated. It was in good stead that we did not have Sinn Féin which is linked with the loony left in Europe, Fianna Fáil which is linked with no one in Europe, or the Technical Group which struggles to comprehend what is going on in Europe in seeking allies.

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