Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this important topic. In November, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, and other eurozone finance Ministers agreed a deal for Greece that has not yet been made available to any other country. The special deal is that the interest and capital earned on the ECB purchase of Greek bonds will be returned to Greece. This represents €500 million for the Greek economy in 2013 alone, and the money will continue to be paid for the next five years. I understand that if a similar deal was extended to Ireland, it would represent approximately €500 million per year. Over five years, this would be about €2.5 billion. If we could renegotiate a similar deal for Ireland, we would be in a better position to address the hole in our budget. Over the next two years, we would have an additional €1 billion to play with in the Exchequer. I stress the need to go to Europe to make the case that we want something similar to the deal the Greek Government got. I ask the Minister of State to ensure that he and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, make a case for Ireland to get a similar deal from the ECB.

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