Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Finance if he will give his understands by the use of the term special case by various European politicians when referring to the nature of the Irish Government’s debt burden. [50518/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The European Council in October agreed that the “the Eurogroup will draw up the exact operational criteria that will guide direct bank recapitalisations by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), in full respect of the 29 June 2012 euro area Summit statement. It is imperative to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns.” Ireland is a special case in this regard due to the unique circumstances behind our banking and sovereign debt crisis and the fact that our banking crisis emerged at a time when the full range of European mechanisms were not available to us.

This has been recognised by other European leaders. The Taoiseach and Chancellor Merkel spoke together on 21 October and they jointly reaffirmed the commitment from 29 June to task the Eurogroup to examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with a view to further improving the sustainability of the well performing adjustment programme. They recognised, in this context, that Ireland is a special case, and that the Eurogroup will take that into account.