Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail)

There was growth after budget 2010 which the Minister of State's party opposed. Fine Gael constantly makes claims on junior bondholders, but that measure was put in place by legislation which Fine Gael opposed just before the general election.

On the bond markets, Sinn Féin should be careful what it wishes for. Senator David Norris was correct on that point. Much of the talk about Sinn Féin's desire to return to the bond markets will come back to haunt it.

There were many PR mistakes made by the Fianna Fáil-led Administration and one of the biggest was encouraging a fear of the IMF. We kept saying that if we did not do this or that, the IMF would come here. It did. From a PR point of view, all of what we had said came back to haunt us. We should have been portraying it as a safe harbour in the event that we were denied access to the bond markets, which is exactly what happened. It was portrayed initially as a dangerous course to follow, whereas I say thank God for it and the troika.