Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

A couple of separate issues have been raised by the Deputy. Deputy McGrath seems to have acknowledged that there will be significant savings to the State following the deal on the promissory note and he is asking for them to be applied in a certain way, but at the same time he is decrying the arrangement made. The Deputy's view is that we should simply default or walk away from it, as if this had no consequences for vulnerable people here. The Deputy knows full well that would be chaotic. Countries that have defaulted in the past still endure the consequences of it 20 years later. That was not the path we chose. We negotiated what was by any standards a very fine deal for the people. I and my party objected at the time to the fact that this bad debt was nationalised but it was nationalised by the previous Administration by a vote in the House which, Deputy McGrath has acknowledged he voted for although he now regrets it. Anyway, that is water under the bridge.

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