Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy comes back to the question of recapitalisation. As I said, this Government did not put a cent into Anglo Irish Bank - €34 billion gone down the tubes, gone, lost to the taxpayer, to the next generation. This Government has put in restructuring of €30 billion. We expect to get all of that back.

There are two options to be considered here. One is the decision of June of 2012, when the European Council agreed with my proposition that there should be a capacity and a facility for direct recapitalisation for countries like Ireland that were unfortunately first out of that gap. The banking inquiry is doing its business at the moment in regard to other matters around that. That position stands. That decision still stands and has not been changed or altered in any way. In fact, to use a phrase of the Deputy's own, I might say: "It hasn't gone away, you know." It is still there. So, the question for the Government, Deputy Adams, is what is the best thing to do here in the interests of the Irish taxpayer. The €34 billion squandered by the previous Administration is dead, gone, washed away. So, on behalf of the taxpayer in restructuring the banks - not for the banks' comfort, but for their customers' futures - that money was invested. We expect to get all of that money back.

So, what is the best thing to do? We have put money into Bank of Ireland. We have got back in excess of what was put in and we still own, on behalf of the people, a proportion of that bank. The same applies in respect of the ownership of the vast majority of Allied Irish Banks. The PTSB had its valuation at about €2 billion recently. The Minister for Finance is very clear that the Irish taxpayer will be able to recover all of that money, and possibly more, in the time ahead, so the question for the Government is what is the best option to choose here. Is it to go the route of recapitalisation, which was made by the European Council on my proposition back in June of 2012, or is it to see what the valuations of the banks are and how those might be progressed in the interests of the Irish taxpayer? So, instead of having one option, we now have two.

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