Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----with respect to trying to reduce the crisis and uphold international law. In that regard, it is frankly ridiculous to try to introduce other issues which are irrelevant.

It has always been the case that there would be a scale towards sanctions. That has been the Irish position. Unfortunately, however, more recent events would suggest that unless we see an improvement and maybe an acceptance of the Minsk agreement from the Russian side, there is no immediate chance of that scale working to reduce sanctions.

The other main area that was addressed by most speakers concerned the Greek elections and Greek debt. There has been significant action - independent of other nations and given the uniqueness of our position - by the Irish Government to date. There was some talk of innovation. The most innovative piece of financial engineering we have seen to date was in the construction of the promissory note, which was of huge benefit to the Irish people. We have now seen a saving of €50 billion through the extension of terms, a reduction of interest rates, and the renegotiation of terms with the IMF. To suggest in any way that Ireland has not achieved through negotiation the most that it could for the Irish people is absolutely ridiculous.

Deputy Martin correctly pointed out that Greek debt now stands at 176% of GDP, which is the highest in the eurozone. Our debt is now at 111% and continues to fall. We must remain focused on the measures and not be distracted in some regards by what is happening in Greece with measures that have continued to have Ireland for a long number of months as the fastest growing EU economy with the fastest falling rate of unemployment. Confidence has been restored after many years of uncertainty caused by the fact that we had inherited an unsustainable debt burden. We will of course continue to examine ways of reducing that burden in the future.

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