Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is not all banking debt, but if someone running a business owes X amount because of the way the business has been run, and then all of a sudden he decides to borrow an extra €64 billion to give to useless failed banks, it has a massive impact on his business. It caused the Government to implement serious austerity measures which undercut public services. The Minister of State talks about how we can now borrow at 2% and that is great. It is good that we can borrow money on the bond market at less than 2% but it is a pity we cannot build the bypass in New Ross at 2%, because we are going to pay about 15% on that through public private partnership, PPP. The EU rules do not allow us to borrow on the books for infrastructure. That is crazy.

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