Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On three separate occasions the Taoiseach has claimed the Government was on the brink of deploying troops onto the streets and introducing capital controls. He told a Fine Gael fundraiser in October, "The head of the Central Bank came in on a Wednesday and said, I have to tell you Taoiseach that it is probably likely that you will have to put the Army around the ATM machines on Friday. We may well have to print money. We may well have to introduce capital controls." On 20 October the Taoiseach told the Dáil a similar story. Two days later he repeated this tall tale to a meeting of the European People's Party in Madrid. We all know that there were contingency plans in place. We have read about them in Pat Leahy's book, The Price of Power - Inside Ireland's Crisis Coalition, while the banking inquiry was told by the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance that they were developed before the Taoiseach's time in office and continued to be developed during his time. However, what the Taoiseach is claiming is something very different. Both inside and outside this Chamber, he is claiming that, in the estimation of the Governor of the Central Bank, a moment had come when he thought it necessary to suggest to the Taoiseach that he should put these plans into action. The Taoiseach has given the impression that somehow within 48 hours, he had thwarted disaster and saved us all from catastrophe. Before we start erecting statues to his glory, will he finally clarify some matters for the Dáil and citizens? What was the event that led Professor Honohan on that Wednesday to suggest to the Taoiseach that he should deploy troops on the streets of the State on that Friday? What week is the Taoiseach talking about and how was this issue resolved?

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