Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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139. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report to Dáil Éireann on the position he has taken at the European Council in relation to the Greek debt crisis and whether he has held bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister of Greece, Mr. Alexis Tsipras; if he has made any proposals to his European Union Heads of Government colleagues on possible write-downs of the massive Greek and Irish national debts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24498/15]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Last night, I attended a special Euro Summit which discussed the very fragile and difficult situation in Greece. The second Greek programme is due to expire next week; important repayments are due in the short and medium term; and outflows from the Greek banks have been very significant, leading to regular increases in the level of ELA support from the ECB.

The Greek government has forwarded new proposals which are now being intensively analysed by the institutions – the European Commission, ECB, IMF and Eurogroup – and being discussed with Greek Ministers and experts. First reactions have been generally to the effect that there has been an important step forward and there is a real basis on which to work.

The Euro Summit gave the Greek Prime Minister the chance to set out his approach directly to all partners and allowed him to appreciate the sense of purpose and determination among his colleagues.

I stressed the importance of developing trust and of implementing policies which can credibly meet the scale of the challenges. I outlined our own experiences, including of modifying aspects of our Programme which we sought to replace with others. These are also points I have made to Prime Minister Tsipras during our bilateral contacts in the margins of other European Council meetings.

The Eurogroup is now scheduled to meet again tomorrow evening with a view to reaching agreement by Thursday morning. I hope that at the European Council later that day we can salute an important breakthrough – even if much work will still remain to be done with Greece on longer-term issues.

In relation to the separate issue of Ireland’s debt, I would note that the Government has achieved significant improvements in the terms of our EU/IMF programme loans since they were initially agreed in late 2010.

The savings arising from these changes can be broken down into two elements, cash savings and a reduction in our borrowing requirement over a period of time.

In 2011, we reached agreement to reduce the cost of our EFSF loans. Similar reductions were subsequently agreed for our interest rates on the loans provided by the EFSM and by our three bilateral lenders. It is estimated that these interest rate reductions are worth around 9 billion euro over the initially envisaged 7½ year term.

These interest rate reductions, and more recently the early repayment of a large portion – up to 18.3 billion euro - of our IMF loans, mean that we have negotiated real cash savings of over 10 billion euro.

Also in 2011, the average maturity of our EFSM and the EFSF loans was extended to 12.5 and 15 years respectively, and a further extension of up to 7 years was agreed in 2013. This has smoothed our redemption profile, improving long-term debt sustainability, and has had a positive effect on the cost of Exchequer borrowing.

The extension of maturities and the subsequent replacement of the Promissory Notes issued to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) with a series of longer term Government bonds reduce the State's borrowing requirement by over 40 billion euro over the next decade, thus significantly improving the viability of the State's finances.