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

I asked the Taoiseach a direct question and he has been waffling about contingency plans. I made the point that it is not about the contingency plans. We already know that such plans were drafted. We questioned Professor Honohan on the contingency plans at the banking inquiry. The specific question is the Taoiseach's claims, made at Fine Gael fund-raisers, at his colleagues' meeting of the EPP and in the Dáil on 20 October, that the Governor of the Central Bank, somebody who sits on the General Council of the ECB, came to the Taoiseach on a Wednesday and told him of the need to execute this plan on the Friday. The Governor of the Central Bank has said that any discussions of a contingency plan were in the context of the breakup of the euro.

It is important that the Taoiseach clarifies the statements he made on three occasions in the last month. Did the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, walk into the Taoiseach's office, as the Taoiseach claims, on a Wednesday and say that the Army needed to be deployed on the Friday? Did he say to the Taoiseach that he believed the euro was about to break up, or was this a fantasy of the Taoiseach? Was there a dose of reality in these conversations or in what the Taoiseach was saying at the Fine Gael fund-raisers, at the EPP and to the Dáil? Does the Taoiseach believe he needs to correct the record of this House? Did this conversation happen?

It is not about the contingency plan. I ask the Taoiseach not to insult my intelligence by referring to contingency plans and the need to have them in place. The question is very clear. The Taoiseach makes the claim that Professor Honohan said to him on a Wednesday that he would need to deploy the Army on the Friday and introduce capital controls. I sit on the banking inquiry. The State has spent close to €5 million getting to the guts of what happened in the crash and also examining the policy responses and the aftermath of what happened when trying to restore the credibility of our banking sector. It is crucially important that the Taoiseach clarifies the situation. Were we within 48 hours, as he claims, of seeing the breakup of the euro and introducing a new currency in the State?

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