Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the Ministers, Deputies Noonan and Brian Hayes, for the work they have previously done in this regard. I did point out that the ECB did publish its holdings of Irish Government bonds of €14.2 billion in the securities market programme. What is not clear is what other member states' Central Banks hold. I maintain it is approximately €20 billion.

I accept we are not Greece. We certainly do not get the weather it gets. I am not referring to a write-down or an interest holiday but to the profits on Irish debt of which each eurozone country will receive a share unless we are given a similar package to that of Greece. There is an opening to negotiate this. We need to build on the deal Greece got recently. It would make significant savings of €3 billion, the equivalent of what would be raised if we sold off some State agencies. Such savings would make a substantial difference to our debt profile and help us speedily recover economically.

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