Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the meeting between President Obama and the Taoiseach. In addition to maintaining warm relations between Ireland and the United States, some serious business was carried out. Yesterday's international aircraft order was the largest in history. The Ryanair model of doing business is based on that of Southwest Airlines. President Obama will be most welcome to Ireland next summer. Some of those involved in the media seem to think Fermanagh is not in Ireland, but it is. I hope the free trade project between the Taoiseach, the President of Europe, and the US President will not be slowed by bureaucrats.

I support Senator David Norris's comments on the Cypriot crisis. Will the Leader bring up with the Minister for Finance - we may do so ourselves later - the issue of deposit insurance? Professor Christopher Pissarides, the Nobel Prize winner for economics in 2010, who has addressed the House asked a number of relevant questions on "Bloomberg Businessweek". If deposits of less than ¤100,000 were insured, what happened to that insurance? How could the Eurogroup agree to tax deposits as small as ¤1? What is the meaning of deposit insurance in the eurozone? Megan Greene who attended a major international conference on finance in Ireland last year and whom I introduced to the Minister for Finance stated, "The Cyprus bailout deal makes a mockery of deposit insurance in Europe. This doesn't bode well for the credibility of a European Union-wide deposit guarantee, one of the basic tenets of a banking union." Will the Leader stress to the Minister the importance of deposit insurance and the need to call it in as soon as possible?

Had that been done, the present crisis might not have occurred. There is deposit insurance but what has happened to it? Is it the umbrella that does not work when it is raining?