NEGOTIATIONS ON cutting the interest cost on Ireland’s EU bailout will resume once the results of stress tests on the health of Irish banks are published this week, Minister for Europe Lucinda Creighton has said.
The decision to postpone discussions on the issue at last week’s Brussels summit meeting was “the correct one”, she said in London last night. “It is important now that we present the full picture after the stress tests are conducted to our European counterparts.”
Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan “intend that we will be fully open, fully transparent and have full disclosure, but we can’t do until we have the results of the tests . . .
“I don’t believe that the issue of the interest rate is off the table. I very much think it will be resolved in the weeks ahead, but, as I say, we had to have the full picture available to them before that could be finalised,” she went on.
Former minister for finance Brian Lenihan had shown “a reluctance to recapitalise the banks before the election, probably more for political reasons than any other reason,” she said. “We have to deal with the fallout from that.”
Ms Creighton met her British counterpart David Lidington last night to discuss the demands of some EU states for corporate tax changes, the upcoming negotiations on the EU budget and the future of Common Agricultural Policy. The fact that the Taoiseach had “laid down a marker” about Ireland’s corporation tax rate had “garnered some respect for us, but also garnered some sympathy from member states that have concerns”, such as the UK and eastern European EU states, she said.
Criticising the last government’s attendance at EU meetings, she said: “I don’t want to focus negatively unduly on the past, but our participation wasn’t at the level that it ought to have been.”
