Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some people have asked why we have tabled a motion on the promissory note bonds at this time. I will explain the reason. Every Sunday, in towns like Ballyhea and Charleville, people march to protest against Irish citizens being forced to pay the bad debts of private banks. We do not know to whom we are paying this money because neither this Government nor its predecessor has taken the simple steps required to find out. There are things we do know, however. We know the money was loaned by professional investors to private banks operating in Ireland. We know these loans were made in the full knowledge that they might not get repaid in full. We know many of these loans were sold on to speculators by the original investors. We know these speculators were gambling that the Government would impose a lower haircut on those loans than other people believed. We know this Government exceeded the speculators' wildest dreams by paying out in full in the end, thereby passing vast amounts of money from Irish households to foreign millionaires.

Approximately half of this was done by means of promissory notes - an IOU that was given from the Irish people to Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. This IOU was not written for the benefit of Ireland; it was written for the benefit of Europe to prevent two eurozone banks from collapsing and to avoid the potential for contagion to other eurozone countries. When the Government restructured the promissory notes in February, it passed this IOU from Anglo Irish Bank to the Central Bank. Now we are paying interest to the Central Bank on this IOU. In time, we will have to pay the full €28 billion in capital. When the Central Bank gets that money, it will destroy it. It does not owe it on to anybody else. It will not put it to any productive use. That money will simply cease to exist.

A few months ago, a delegation from "Ballyhea Says No" met officials from the European Central Bank and the European Commission. They explained that the IOU was issued in a time of crisis to stabilise the European banking system. They explained that under the new eurozone banking rules, Ireland would not have to pick up this odious debt. They explained that no other European nation was being asked to bear the burden that Ireland is being asked to bear. They asked if the European Commission and the European Central Bank would consider changing the rules of monetary financing once to allow the Central Bank to destroy that €28 billion IOU. The officials sympathised with the plight of the Irish people, but they also said that they could not respond to such a request unless it came from the Irish Government and that no such request had ever been made. That is why we have tabled this motion.

The motion before the House does not call for unilateral action or for default. It simply calls on the Government to ask and make the best case possible for an agreed destruction of that odious debt. The Government has said tonight that it will not even try. We have been told about the dangers of even asking. We have been told it would put 250,000 jobs at risk, lock us out of the money markets and make us look bad in Europe. What a load of rubbish.

The Government claims it is doing a good job and claims to have lowered the interest rate on the troika debt, but it did not. It tried and failed. Portugal succeeded and then we got it. The Government claims to have burned the bondholders, but that is not really true given that €143 billion of senior debt has been paid out in full plus profits. Greece achieved a 50% write-down.

The Government claims Ireland no longer needs to borrow for the promissory notes, but we do and our children will pick up the tab. Yet, inexplicably, it seems the Government does not seem to want to make a fuss in Europe. I say it was elected to make a fuss. I commend the people of Ballyhea and I commend the motion to the House.

See this speech in context