Michael McNamara (Clare, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Previous speakers read into the record the general consensus on the part of analysts and commentators, particularly those outside this country, that this is indeed a good deal for Ireland. Analysts in this State have referred to the rules being bent as far as possible without being broken. Both previous speakers and the analysts to whom I refer have congratulated the Government on what is a very good deal. I join them in congratulating the Cabinet, particularly the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, on achieving this deal. Deputy Cowen was reasonably wholesome in his praise of the deal. I congratulate him on his honesty. Other members of the Opposition have been considerably less honest. The degree of misrepresentation we have witnessed in less than one week is nothing short of overwhelming and it goes a long way towards explaining why members of the public are so utterly cynical about politics.

There is not a single member of Sinn Féin in the Chamber at present. Deputy McDonald from that party criticised members of the Government for coming into the Chamber whooping and hollering and with their chests puffed out. I did not hear any whooping and hollering. I accept there were many people in the House when the deal was announced and that some individuals were emotional. However, there was no whooping and hollering and no one is engaging in self-congratulation on this side of the Chamber because we know the deal is merely a beginning.

It is no more than a beginning, but it is an important beginning for this State which we promised and on which we have delivered.

Further deals on the Irish banking debt are required. We are very clear about that. Deputy Cowen acknowledged that there is a very good likelihood that we will get further deals on separating bank debt from sovereign debt.

I have been surprised by what some of the commentators, who at least take themselves seriously if others might not, had to say. Deputy Donnelly left us in no doubt that this was a bad deal because the Greeks got a write-down and we did not, and the Spanish were able to recapitalise their banks without having to pay for it. I will read the statement of the Eurogroup on the Spanish recapitalisation. It states:

Ministers unanimously agreed today to grant financial assistance for the recapitalisation of financial institutions in response to the Spanish authorities' request... The Eurogroup agreed that the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (F.R.O.B.), acting as agent of the Spanish government, will receive the funds and channel them to the financial institutions concerned. The Spanish government will retain the full responsibility of the financial assistance.

That clearly demonstrates the utter misrepresentation in which Deputy Donnelly engaged.

He also said that the Greeks got a write-down of their debt and why should we not get one? What the Greeks got was a debt buy-back of the bonds held by private investors, not European Central Bank, ECB, emergency liquidity and not EFSF funding but private investors, and it was a voluntary buy-back. Not all of them participated in it, but the majority did.

What Deputy Donnelly did not say is that there was a similar scheme in IBRC which applied to subordinated bondholders. Those subordinated bondholders refused to participate in it, and the subordinated bondholders who are not covered by the Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Scheme are now hit to the tune of approximately €200 million. They lose their entire investment because they did not participate in that, but Deputy Donnelly did not want to give any credit for that or mention that bondholders are being burned to the tune of €200 million. What the Greeks got was an extension of the maturities of the bilateral and EFSF funds - no more, no less. That is not a debt write-down.

Deputy Ross told us this time last week during the debate on his ill-timed Private Members' motion, although he was not responsible for the timing of the deal, that the State and the Government was about to be humiliated. He was a little more magnanimous in his Sunday Independentcolumn but he was back engaging in rhetoric again this evening and criticising commentators like Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Timeswho heralded it as a very good deal. The great majority of international investors would place a little more credence on what the Financial Timeshas to say than, with respect, the commentators in the Sunday Independent, but then the Financial Timesnever heralded Seanie FitzPatrick. The Financial Timesnever called for Seanie FitzPatrick to be made the Governor of the Central Bank. In fact, it expressed a lot of worry that the regulation of Irish banks was not what it could or should have been.

I record my utter disdain at the level of misrepresentation that has been going on, particularly by Sinn Féin. We see the reality of what that party represents. It is a party that thrives on the failings of a state. Just as it thrived on the failings of the Northern Ireland state, it had hoped to do exactly the same here, but it was cut short by this deal which is not an end in itself but is certainly a very good beginning.

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