Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is correct in that the internal situation in Turkey is a matter of serious concern. As the Deputy will be aware, the conflict between the Turkish Government and the PKK restarted in July 2015 when 180 civilians were killed. We are aware there are some serious human rights concerns. Ireland strongly condemns the horrific suicide terrorist attacks, the bombings in Ankara in October which killed 102 people and bombings in Istanbul where 12 people were killed this month. The latest European Commission report on the accession process has noted a number of concerns, including with regard to significant shortcomings affecting the independence of the judiciary, as the Deputy mentioned, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Ireland continues to raise concerns in this regard, including most recently at the Council of Europe in December and with our European partners, and there will be ongoing dialogue with Turkey.

The question with respect to Russia was briefly discussed at the European Council. My understanding is the Taoiseach did not contribute.

With respect to the Deputy's question on debt, I have attended this House over the past year and a half and the Deputy consistently seems to forget that the terms of the bailout that was negotiated by his party's Government, the promissory note being one example, would have cost many tens of billions of euro more than is currently the position with the renegotiation of the terms, the extension of the maturities, the extension of the terms of many of the loans and the reduction of interest rates. By any objective analysis, having regard to the work that was done with the troika programme given the disastrous economic position in which this country was left, it is clear that the Government, especially the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, worked very effectively with our European partners to identify ways for the fiscal position of this country to be where it is. As the Deputy will be aware, there is still a small gap of less than 3% between what this country collects in income and what we spend, but the Deputy will remember when that when his party was last in government this country economically was on its knees. When he brings up the issue of the fiscal position of this country at this stage at the end of the Government's term of office, he would do himself great credit to acknowledge the extraordinary journey this country has made over the past five years under the stewardship of the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton and others.

See this speech in context