Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the write-downs between the nominal value of the loans of around €74 billion and the €31 billion to which the Deputy referred, those losses were taken by the creditors who had borrowed from the banks. The losses are not to the taxpayer but to the individual creditors who effectively went broke. There are several examples of this, the most prominent of which are in the building and development industry. There are many others in ordinary businesses across the country which went broke during the crisis and there was a write-down of their loans.

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