Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate. I was present in the Chamber earlier and I am aware that our colleagues in Fianna Fáil have had plenty of smart comments to make. There is much in this deal for which they need to be grateful. By addressing some of the legacy problems they left behind, we are making matters easier for them in the context of their political recovery. It will be the responsibility of others to decide whether such a recovery will be good for the country.

The agreement reached last week replaces short-term high-interest loans that were due to be paid over a seven- or eight-year period with long-term low-interest loans in respect of which an average timescale of 34 years will apply. I am 34 years of age. I was born in 1978 and the CSO's figures for that year indicate that the average cost of a three-bedroom house at that time was £2,300. The most recent comparable figures produced by the CSO indicate that the cost of such a house is now €240,000. This represents a change of approximately 90% and it shows what happened to the value of money over a 30-year period. If an equivalent 90% change occurs in the next 34 years, then the monster we inherited in the form of the promissory notes and debt will be a very minor speck on a larger economic system, particularly if our economy can grow on foot of the many measures it is proposed to introduce. This Government is intent on reforming and repairing the country's economy in order that we might get back on our feet.

The deal means that our debt is more sustainable. However, it is not a silver bullet and it will not solve all of our problems. As Deputy Donohoe pointed out, the confidence of outside investors in Ireland is definitely higher. It is important to note that those to whom we look to lend to us will have their money repaid before the debts of the former Anglo Irish Bank are paid down. The year 2038 is a long way off and who is to say that the Government in power at that stage will not roll the bonds over once again? In many respects, the biggest cashflow benefit from this deal is the €20 billion that will be saved during the next ten years. Ten years is mentioned for a specific reason. This is because government debt is dealt with in the form of ten-year paper. Above and beyond that, such debt becomes less significant. People who want to invest in this country are interested in how sustainable and how good a bet it is, and we have made our ten-year outlook appear much better. We have also reduced the cost of borrowing to the State. This is probably the greatest saving of all. One only had to read the report on the front page of last Saturday's edition of the Irish Independent to discover the real impact on this country's cost of borrowing.

A number of people in my constituency raised with me the fact that we have made this debt a sovereign debt and that we are passing it on to our children.

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