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

-----with good reason in some respects because what is never mentioned is that under that guarantee, up to €173 billion in retail and corporate deposits were protected. They had to be protected. That is a net figure for retail and corporate deposits out of the overall amount of €373 billion that was guaranteed.

The fundamentals of "no bank must fail" and "no bondholders must be burned" were European policy positions. The Taoiseach says that sovereign and bank debt were separated in 2012 but they were not. The ESM fund is nowhere near sufficient to deal with any similar bank crisis if it happened in the next ten years. It is the best that could be achieved through compromise and negotiation but it is at negligible levels in terms of what would be required if there was a systemic financial and banking collapse of the kind we experienced across Europe five to six years ago. It is not at all clear that, if in the morning a similar collapse happened at European level, the sovereign would not be called upon again, if the truth be told. That is borne out by the disappointing figures for the funds that have been provided through the ESM and has been acknowledged by most commentators.

The Taoiseach must acknowledge that what he and the then Tánaiste said in 2012 was not the truth. There was no game-changer or seismic shift in terms of what was to happen to Ireland's debt position and getting retrospective recapitalisation. The IMF, a former participant in those negotiations, is now saying that the position of Europe and of the ECB with regard to Ireland was not fair and that Ireland is entitled to some recapitalisation. A number of key individuals who were involved at that time are now making that point. I would not take too much credit for my intervention having brought Mr. Trichet to the Irish Institute of European Affairs. That was not the Banking Inquiry. The idea that parliamentarians would go along, sit in the audience and ask a few questions and be nice boys and girls was farcical in many respects. Mr. Trichet should have appeared before the inquiry. Just because he sees the European Parliament as the body to which he is accountable is no reason for him - or even Mr. Draghi - not coming before a sworn inquiry to answer fundamental questions about the eurozone system, how it works and its future, in terms of what went wrong at a regulatory and supervisory level as well as the whole idea of banking union. We are a long way away from any development or achievements on those issues.

See this speech in context