Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

Only for the fact that it is Christmas, the season of goodwill, I would be more scathing about this debate. If we look back to last Christmas, there were people alive who are no longer alive as they have committed suicide because of the economic crisis and personal pressures. The failure of the political system, domestically over the past few years and at European level, is highly regrettable. This is the 15th Council meeting since the crisis emerged and one Council meeting after another has failed to address the matter. The last meeting was the most disappointing of all. There is a new head of the ECB, a man who has experience in the international finance world in New York and elsewhere. He signalled to the markets that there was to be a resolution of the fundamental underlying fault in the structure of the euro at this Council meeting. In fact, the meeting failed to deliver and there is nothing worse than signalling an intention to do something and then failing to do it.

The efforts of the German Chancellor and the French President, putting themselves forward as providing leadership to this crisis, which is unprecedented in Europe, has shown the dearth of leadership across the Union. I spoke recently with a person the Minister of State had lunch with last week, the president of the OSCE, Petros Efthymiou. We talked about the crisis in Greece and the crisis in Ireland and he told me that the German Chancellor and the French President had put themselves forward as leaders but they do not know where they are leading. They do not have solutions.

That is not good enough and we need to face up to the fact that the concept of the euro was flawed from the start. Greece should never have been a member and it is questionable whether Italy should have been. There needed to be greater harmonisation of the economies and Ireland must question whether it wants to maintain its sovereignty or be part of a federal arrangement. The euro cannot survive unless there is total fiscal unity to accompany monetary unity. That will mean sharing much more than a set of rules and regulations. Fiscal union means much more than that but all we are getting is a list of rules to deal with the symptoms of the crisis rather than the crisis.

Within the next 12 months, Germany, France, Italy and Spain must roll over €500 billion of sovereign debt. There is no way anyone could conceivably argue that there is a possibility of doing that in the markets. The EFSF is totally inadequate and adding €200 billion to it was like putting a sticking plaster on a very serious injury. This House should say to European leaders and the Council members that we want this problem addressed. It needs far more dramatic action and initiative than we have seen. The progress they are trying to make has been put in serious doubt last night with the statement from the Czech Republic and Hungary. From what I know of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orbán, if he says something, he does not say it lightly. If there is no accord on that matter, it brings the future of the eurozone project into doubt. We are only months away from finding a resolution or the monetary union collapsing. If that happens, it will raise serious questions about the European Union.