Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the promissory notes arrangement. When the history books are written about the period from September 2008 to February 2013, I wonder how they will read and what they will say. The Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government of the day spoke of a soft landing. If an opinion poll was carried out about that soft landing, I wonder how it would read today. As a society, we must decide what we want. Do we want a Government that has the best interests of its people at heart or one that says "yes" to everything, throws money at problems and cares more about winning elections than anything else?

The thrust of this Government is to repair the broken economy we inherited after Fianna Fáil. Our people were lying in the gutter, demoralised and without hope and our European and wider global reputation was destroyed. Government Ministers and particularly the Taoiseach have worked tirelessly to repair our reputation. This was a starting point for the outcome we received last week. This achievement is not a magic bullet but is a powerful step in the right direction. We must work to fix our legacy bank debt as well as our personal debt, which is crippling many families.

We aim to get some significant outcomes on those over the coming months. What has been achieved is stability, sustainability and certainty. I wish to clarify for Sinn Féin and others that the promissory note was signed by the Irish Government of the day. In other words, this was a guarantee by the State to pay. I know Sinn Féin and others put forth much rhetoric about getting a write down, which makes it seem like they are caught in some time warp or a "Back to the Future" moment, the ECB legally cannot right off debt and has never done so.

The promissory note is torn up and what was a short-term loan at 8.5% interest is now a long-term loan of 40 years with no capital repayments for 25 years and an interest rate of less than 1%. Who can predict what will happen in five years, never mind 40 years? This lifts a significant burden from the State for the next ten years. It gives us greater cash flow and economic flexibility with a net benefit of €1 billion a year which will not have to be collected in taxes or saved in spending and we will no longer have to borrow that €25 billion to repay the guarantee. The benefits are already obvious we see Standard & Poor's has improved its outlook on Ireland from a negative to stable. Interest rates on borrowing have already reduced. This will benefit Government borrowing but also business borrowing, which will improve confidence and lead to job creation. I thank and pay tribute to our Minister for Finance and his team for their strategy, commitment and tireless work in achieving this arrangement.

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