Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish he had much more contact with many medical card holders who have lost their medical cards because he would then have a far greater grasp of that reality but that is a separate matter for a different forum. However, the failure of the Government to grasp the reality of people losing their discretionary medical cards on a continual basis is something I cannot comprehend.

The Taoiseach said it is expected that the ESM will be operation in the third quarter of 2014 because at that stage, the single supervisory mechanism will be in place. All of the commentary so far has been to the effect that the ESM will be the recapitalisation instrument of last resort and that sovereigns will be ahead, and banks themselves initially. That is before we get to talk about retrospective recapitalisation.

I asked the Taoiseach earlier whether the issue of retrospective recapitalisation was dead or alive. What has he been hearing in terms of his negotiations with other EU Heads of State? Has he negotiated or discussed this issue recently? Ireland is owed one by the European Union. The Taoiseach has said that on the record. President Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, came here and said that Ireland took one for Europe. We were not allowed to burn bondholders or to allow any bank to fail on the basis that it would spread contagion across the eurozone. That was the position of the last Government and it is that of this one because the last time the banks were being recapitalised and the Minister for Finance brought the proposals before this House, his Government had agreed to burn the Anglo Irish Bank bondholders on that occasion. However, we learned from The Price of Power, the book by Pat Leahy, that the Minister got a telephone call from President Trichet at the time who basically said that a bomb would go off not in Brussels but in Dublin if he proceeded with burning bondholders so adamant was he against that position.

That is the reason Ireland is due a return from Europe in respect of the debt it has undertaken as a result of the banks, the collapse of our banks and banks across Europe following that. Putting politics to one side, there is a genuine sense that the key players in Germany and across Europe are moving steadily away from the prospect of separating the sovereign from the banks, in particular the ESM definitively being in a position to recapitalise banks, and that is not even in the context of retrospection. Will the Taoiseach comment that he is more than confident - that he is certain - the ESM will be there to recapitalise banks into the future and that retrospective recapitalisation for Ireland is still genuinely on the cards?

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