CONTAGION:MINISTER FOR Finance Michael Noonan has said the European Central Bank must put up a "wall of money" to prevent contagion from Greece following its shock decision to hold a referendum on its rescue package.
Mr Noonan said yesterday that the ECB was the only barrier to prevent a widening of the euro zone’s debt situation and it should use its resources to continue buying bonds. This would prevent contagion spreading to Italy and Spain, he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "The firewall which is part of the comprehensive solution to prevent contagion . . . is not yet in place . . . [The ECB] needs to go into the market and say, 'We have a wall of money here and no matter how much speculation there is, we're going to keep buying Italian bonds or any other euro bonds that are threatened'."
He conceded that many ECB policymakers were deeply uncomfortable about this prospect.
Mr Noonan said the Government wanted ensure it had “no association with the Greek problem whatsoever” and that it should be seen as a separate economy with different values.
Speaking in the Dáil later, the Minister said he was unhappy at yesterday’s payment by Anglo Irish Bank of over €700 million to unsecured bondholders. “I do not like this. We have a choice between two evils. The choice we are making is the lesser of two evils.”
His comments were made during a turbulent day at the Dáil where there were heated exchanges between the Government and the Opposition. Sinn Féin and a number of left-wing TDs walked out of the Dáil in protest at the payment.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin berated the Government as a group of “self-praised tough talkers” who had chosen to propose nothing and negotiate nothing with the EU or the ECB.
"They did not even raise the issue of the repayment of a €700 million bond today, for which there is no justification. And at yet another European summit, the Taoiseach called no leader, met no leader and tabled no issue. He sat on the sidelines waiting to find something for which he could claim credit – using his time to script brazen articles about his own record," he said in the Dáil, referring to the Taoiseach's opinion piece for The Irish Times.
Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams, who led his party’s TDs out of the Dáil, claimed the Government had tried to silence the Opposition on the issue and accused it of deliberately misleading voters.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins described the payment of the bond as an “obscenity”.
