John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the debate on Thursday on the EU-IMF funding. I am conscious, as is the rest of the country, that it is increasingly clear that the bondholders and the markets are particularly targeting the peripheral countries and the less advanced financially countries in Europe. First, Greece was targeted. We know there was short selling of Greek bonds, which was outlawed, and eventually Greece decided not to sell its bonds to anybody but banks or insurance companies. It seems Ireland has been targeted, Portugal has been targeted, and they are talking about Spain and Italy. Iceland has already gone into default. The reality is we are not alone in Europe but is happening throughout the eurozone.

There is much misrepresentation and that is not good at this time. When financial debate runs out and there is nothing more to be said, that is the time to say nothing more instead of talking about a suite of rates, as if the IMF and the EU could have given us a different rate if we had only asked for it, which is clearly patently untrue. Similarly, why are there calls for a vote on the issuance of bonds and the taking up of a bond? Why is it being called for now? It never happened before in the history of the State that there was a vote on a bond issue.

Finally, at a time when we need level heads, we need to see a financial way forward and we should be talking about what is the best monetary policy and the best way of expanding the economy rather than stating that the Government should not have used the National Pensions Reserve Fund and it was needed for the pensions of the future. Each of the Opposition parties had intended to use it for something else anyway, in other words, they are speaking out of both sides of their mouth asking why the Government is not holding it for pensioners when they intended to use it to reflate the economy.