BREAKING NEWS: DONEGAL TD Pearse Doherty has hit out a Government plans to pay off the debts of Anglo Irish Bank tonight on a night of drama in Dublin.
Anglo Irish – rebranded the IRBC – has been wound up and a liquidator appointed.
The Government is doing a deal with the European Central Bank which will mean taxpayers will pay off all the debts run up by the bankers during the boom, but over a longer period of time.
It will mean less harsh budgets, but bank debts will become secured sovereign debts which may not be paid for up to 40 years.
TD Doherty joined independents including Thomas Pringle when they reiterated that the promissory notes should not be repaid.
Doherty said: “The summit last June committed to separating banking debt from sovereign debt. My party has always insisted that the Anglo Promissory Notes are not the debt of the Irish taxpayer and we have urged this Government to not pay them, because we cannot pay them.
“The details of this deal are sketchy. Sinn Fein has no objection to the liquidation of Anglo Irish bank if it rids us of the current promissory notes. However, that is where the government should stop. It should not be replacing the promissory notes with a sovereign bond.
“Rather than seek a write-down of the promissory notes, this government appears to have focussed all its efforts on changing the terms under which the notes are repaid. If what has been emerging in the news transpires, and the promissory notes become a sovereign bond, this severely limits future restructuring of these notes.
“The litmus test of any deal that happens in the next day or so will be whether it reduces this state’s sovereign debt and whether it has a positive impact on the state’s budgetary position. I am hugely concerned that, regardless of what comes out of this process, the government has not agreed with the Troika that it will change next year’s budget targets. We could still have a €3.1 billion adjustment to make come the end of the year.”
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