POLITICAL REACTION:FIANNA FÁIL and the Green Party have welcomed the outcome of the EU summit but Sinn Féin has dismissed it as a missed opportunity.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on public expenditure Michael McGrath said the measures announced provide for the possibility of the overall debt burden being reduced. “The reduction in the interest rate is to be welcomed, albeit coming over four months after the Eurogroup heads of state first agreed to the cut.”
Mr McGrath said the Government needed to clarify whether the interest rate cut would apply to all of the funds in the bailout.
He criticised the Government’s commitment to engage constructively on the issue of the consolidated corporate tax base, and said it represented a major threat to Ireland’s attractiveness as a destination for inward investment.
He said it was not yet clear whether there has been any consideration of Ireland’s wish to deal with certain additional classes of bank bondholders.
“The deal gives a window of opportunity which we should take to implement burden-sharing with the remaining unsecured, unguaranteed bondholders at Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide.
“We should not wait until the autumn to raise this issue in a meaningful way, as has been proposed by the Taoiseach.”
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty described the agreement as a missed opportunity, and said it would do little to reduce Ireland’s growing debt burden.
“While any reduction in the interest rate is welcome this does not represent a significant gain for Ireland. With our national debt set to exceed €200 billion by 2014, this interest rate reduction will do nothing to address our national debt. The only way to reduce this debt is by burden-sharing with senior bondholders and loss sharing with the ECB.”
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan welcomed the reduction in the cost of borrowing from the European facility. “Even if it took the threat to larger countries such as Italy to break the impasse in Berlin and Paris the outcome is welcome and will allow us to maintain our own debt sustainability.”
He added: “The combination of budget measures implemented by the previous government and the support from this Government for the four-year strategy gives me confidence that we will be able to recover from this economic crisis.”
