Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is quite wrong when he says that all the borrowings we have had are to pay back banks. The vast bulk of the borrowings are to maintain social provision in this State - to pay for doctors, nurses and so on.

It is a small cohort that is actually paying back the debt.

If one disaggregates the banking debt, it is our expectation to get the significant sum of money put into the pillar banks, Bank of Ireland and AIB, back in full. As for the other black hole of what was Anglo Irish Bank or the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the decision to recapitalise that bank was made by the former Administration. I, among others in my party, voted against that. I cannot remember if Deputy Joe Higgins did on the night or if he was here at that stage.

The Government was stuck with that decision. We liquidated IBRC and will get a significant return from that, the details of which will be known by the end of the year. We have re-profiled the loan to sustain that from the disastrous bullet payments negotiated by the former Administration into a 44-year series of loans at a very low interest rate.

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