David Norris (Independent)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Quinn, for sharing time. It is not very edifying for us in Ireland to be included in the acronym PIIGS, but that seems to be what has happened and I am not sure it is entirely our own fault. If one looks at the situation, tax evasion is endemic throughout the Hellenic world. I have a house in Cyprus where the same situation obtains as in Greece. It is a national pastime to evade taxes. The entire establishment collaborates, in particular, in land conveyancing, etc. There is a systematic, deliberate and knowing fraud on the government. People do not want to pay tax. We know that. That is the first part of it.

The initial figures given by the Greeks when they entered the eurozone are now quite suspect. However, to my mind the most significant aspect — Senator MacSharry is quite right, I did raise this on the Order of Business — was the quite deliberate and malignant intervention of Goldman Sachs. It astonishes me that the big people get away with it. Implicit in all of this is a lack of morality. I have constantly railed against Standard& Poors, and Fitch, which were also involved in these toxic bundles and derivatives, but it should be placed on the record of this House to the dishonour of Goldman Sachs that it specifically perfected instruments calculated to deceive and to assist the Greek Government in postponing the evil day, in pushing forward all its debt and also to deliberately deceive their colleagues in Europe. That is a disgrace. It may not be illegal, but it is certainly wrong and it should be made illegal. Next we will have these hedge-fund managers and financial gurus also betting against the Greek economy and perhaps trying to bring down the euro. That certainly worries me.

The Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, stated in his speech that the eurogroup expressed confidence in the plans of the Greek authorities. Almost simultaneously, however, they were stating it is not enough and they need more. The measures adopted by Greece so far are twice as severe within a shorter timescale than what we have adopted here, and we are expecting them to be added to.

It is worrying to hear Senator Quinn state there are moves through different European parliaments to embargo a loan on Greece because the knock-on effect should Greece collapse completely — bankruptcy has been mentioned — would be serious.

In all the documentation issued there is a bureaucratic soft-tone diplomatic language. However, when one comes to the account of EUROSTAT, and its view of the Greek statistics, it speaks of significant uncertainties over the figures. EUROSTAT states that there is a recent report on exceptional and unprecedented failures in the reporting of budgetary data by Greece, severe irregularities and political interference with statistics and forecasts.

If Greece has lied, if Greece has landed in this, how many other countries have done the same? We were not prepared for this. Are any methods of investigation of certification being now considered that will prevent this happening in future?

I ask the Minister of State when he will be in a position to respond to what I said about Goldman Sachs. I will not be present when he replies but I will read the Official Report with great interest. Something needs to be done to address these people and their malign influence on the economy.