Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Borrowing dollars last year would have been a daft arrangement because two years ago the dollar was worth €1.20. It is now worth €0.80. This body would have lost a third of the value of its borrowing in euro within two years.

I believe this section was taken from an old Bill that predates the euro and it has got through because nobody noticed. The idea of an Irish public authority borrowing outside the euro area does not make a scrap of commercial, economic or organisational sense. It would be an entirely daft risk to take. What would it borrow, Ethiopian birr? There are really only three currencies in the world now — dollars, euro and yen. Is it going to borrow dollars when the dollar is probably close to the bottom of a cycle and may shoot up in value? Will it borrow yen or euro? That little subsection should be removed.