Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad my Sinn Féin colleague has interrupted me. It is good because it leads me to my next point. I have seen some ashen-faced Opposition people around the place. I call them the flat-earthers. They do not want a good deal because they want to continue to be able to say "Sure you are being screwed by the establishment of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour". These people want a bad deal so they can keep singing their song about "You are all getting done, but we are the ones who will save you". They will not save anything. The reality is that we would have loved to have started from a different place, but we were not given that opportunity. This problem was handed over from one sovereign Government as it exited to another sovereign Government as it entered.

It is important to put some figures on the record of the House. We are due to pay ¤3.1 billion, or ¤3,100 million. Depending on whatever the outcome is, the euro rate at the moment is less than 1%. I do not know what the deal - if we are able to get a deal - will be. In the conversation that was leaked last week, it was suggested that we would not start to pay for a number of years. I am not sure what that period of time is. I want to put on the record what the difference in real numbers will be if we do not have to pay anything for a year, two years or five years and if the net figure for the euro rate is 1%. The difference between that 1% payment and the ¤3.1 billion payment is ¤2,790 million. Those are real numbers. That is what I call cashflow. That is the cashflow that every person in this House and the other House is talking about. That is the cashflow that allows us to alleviate the difficult choices that have been made and which the Minister may have to make in budget 2014. I support the Minister, Deputy Noonan. I was in the other Chamber on the night in September 2008 when he was the only person in either House to ask whether it was a liquidity crisis or a capitalisation crisis. We all looked around, scratched our heads and wondered what Deputy Noonan was talking about. I trust the leadership and the abilities of the Minister and of Professor Honohan. I hope a deal that helps the citizens of this country will be reached in the days to come. If that happens, we will all benefit.