Níor thug an Taoiseach freagra ar na ceisteanna a chuir mé air. Seo na focail a dúirt sé. These are his words. I did not make them up. These are what people voted for. The Taoiseach talked about the five point plan. It strikes me that we are engaged in a five point U-turn. Here are other words people voted for:

Fine Gael in Government will force certain bondholders to share in the cost of recapitalising troubled financial institutions. This will be done unilaterally for most junior bondholders. It could be extended as part of a Euope-wide framework for senior debt, focusing on insolvent institutions like Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide that have no importance.

The Government gave €3 billion of the people's money to those two institutions. There needs to be some clarity so people can understand what the Government is doing and have confidence in it. The Taoiseach's party said not a red cent would be committed to the banks unless they imposed losses on their bondholders, yet last week the Government poured another €24 billion of the people's money into those banks. What price manifestos, election promises or election commitments? A very high price indeed, especially for people who are in economic distress at this time. The manifesto of the Labour Party, the other party in government, has been shredded. The Irish taxpayers are paying, not just for the Government's U-turns, but also for the private greed of bankers.

There is no sense of our coming out of this. I am, by nature, an optimist and I believe we can find a way out of our difficulty. This party has put forward suggestions for how to do that, but not by throwing good money after bad.

The Government's decision of last week brought about certainty and clarity regarding the Irish banking sector. This is very important for business. It has been received in that light by international commentators, the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. It was about time someone made a decision in respect of the Irish banking sector.

The Government looked at the positions of six dysfunctional banks and a country that could not borrow money on the international markets, whose banks could not borrow money and where every cent coming in was being provided from abroad. The Government's decisions give clarity and certainty to that. This has been followed by clarity from the ECB in respect of its ongoing commitment to liquidity in the Irish banking system, which is important in getting confidence back into our economy. Thursday's payments of €2.5 billion and €530 million from the Exchequer to Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide arise from the promissory note made by the previous Government. I have said on many occasions that there is no point in not telling the people what the facts of life are.

Except during an election campaign.

It is a fact of life that for the next ten years these payments will have to be made.

Not a red cent.

When we opened the press this is what we found, or part of what we found.

Was Bertie Ahern not in the press?

Deputy Adams knows we could deal with the Ulster Canal and many other issues in the north west and elsewhere in the country if we did not have this imposition and burden, but that is a fact of life. The decisions made by the Government bring clarity and certainty to the banking sector. That is important.

The IMF-EU troika will be here until 15 April and they will involve themselves in technical discussions as to where the country is in respect of the programme agreed by the sovereign State of Ireland with the IMF and the EU. In opposition, we voted against this agreement on the basis of its interest rate being too high——

On the basis that Fine Gael was on the opposite side of the House at that time.

——and because of other elements of the deal, notably the cost of the banking restructure. We did not pursue the issue of interest rate reduction until the bank stress tests were carried out. These have been robust and the most severe ever carried out. They speak for themselves.

The Taoiseach was not elected to do that.

That brings clarity to that position. With certainty in respect of the banking sector and ongoing liquidity, we move on from here to deal with our European counterparts in rebuilding the reputation and status of this country, which was allowed to slide, unfortunately, to a position where suspicions existed about Ireland and where many of the comments made by our politicians were not believed, for valid reasons in many cases.