Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Notwithstanding what has been done - I accept that the officials are working very hard - it might be no harm if the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, flew to Cairo and met the Administration because these regimes act on a state-by-state basis. I agree with other Deputies who have poured scorn on the quality and integrity of the judicial system that it operates. We know this from even a cursory look at what has been going on in terms of the trial of opponents of the regime and so on. This is a young Irish man and the length of time he has been left there is intolerable. Direct political contact in the form of a direct visit could yield some results. I make this suggestion to be constructive.

I was struck by the Taoiseach's comments on recapitalisation because one gets the sense that we were told a load of lies for quite some time, although I am not making that accusation. I recall that in 2012 - I remember it well - we and the nation were told that there had been a major breakthrough and it was not about the separation of bank and sovereign debt alone. It was Mario Monti, the then Italian Prime Minister, who drove the deal at the time; it had nothing to do with the Taoiseach. In fact, the then Tánaiste had left the meeting, but on hearing something had happened went on "Morning Ireland" to say breathlessly that we had achieved a great breakthrough - "a seismic shift" was the phrase used, with game changer. The phrase "retrospective recapitalisation" was also used. The Ministers, Deputies Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin said we could expect billions in return. They said this giddily at a press conference at the time and I think the figure of €6 billion might have been mentioned. The Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, said he could not talk about how much specifically was involved and mentioned some fair he had experience of going to and that one never revealed one's hand. It has now been truly revealed because it has been revealed that we did not ask for anything. We never asked for retrospective recapitalisation.

I will give the Government credit for spin, camouflage and rewriting the narrative as if what went before never happened and was a dream we all had. However, the reality is that selling the banks was an option in 2012. Selling AIB and our shares in the Bank of Ireland was always an option by definition. The Taoiseach knew this, as did the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin. The Taoiseach knew this when he called the decision in 2012 by the European Council a game changer and a seismic shift. The likelihood was that in time, as the banks recovered, these two banks would wipe their faces. However, the Taoiseach chose to take a political route and say this was fantastic, that it was a new world and that there would be retrospective recapitalisation, but we never asked for it. The new story of the Government is that it did recapitalise AIB and Bank of Ireland, but the reality is that the Government honoured up to €20 billion of both unsecured and unguaranteed bonds. There was the famous episode when Mr.Trichet said to the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, that a bomb would go off, not in Brussels but in Dublin if he were to proceed to burn the bondholders. Essentially, the Taoiseach made political claims in 2012 which were untrue, so much so that he never pursued them. I have been asking about this for two and a half years and all I get is mumbo jumbo. The Taoiseach confirmed in the past two to three months that he never asked for direct or retrospective recapitalisation and he is not asking for it now either. That is the level of dishonesty and untruth at which he has come at this issue.

I was struck by the Taoiseach's comment that he had spoken to the Greek Prime Minister, Mr. Tsipras, and explained to him how we had come through our recovery. The conversation probably went a little like this-----

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