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Taoiseach Micheál Martin made reference to the bank bailout some 57 times in the Dáil before his “strange” claim that Irish banks were “not rescued” yesterday.
The Taoiseach was accused of trying to rewrite history and “deny reality” by claiming that the banks did not receive a 64 billion euro bailout.
In the Dáil, he said: “The banks were not rescued. The shareholders of the banks were not rescued” and instead “the state took action.”
“That is not a popular thing, but it is a fact,” he said.
Turns out we didn’t bail out the banks after all pic.twitter.com/4fWk8kA0mW
– Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) December 16, 2020
The comments came after Solidarity-PBP TD Richard Boyd Barrett raised the ongoing Debenhams dispute and claimed that the government couldn’t put money on the table because it would set a precedent, but is willing to bail out the banks. .
While the Government Press Office did not respond to a query requesting clarification on Mr. Martin’s comment, the Taoiseach has referred to the bailouts several times in Dáil’s speeches.
In total, according to the KildareStreet.ie website, Mr. Martin has used the term “bailout” 57 times, all but two of which refer to EU-IMF loans from Ireland.
In a 2012 parliamentary question to then-Finance Minister Michael Noonan, Martin specifically uses the term “bank bailout” and asks Noonan “if he will describe all the meetings where he has asked the European Union for help in dealing with the problem. Bank of Ireland bailout “.
Earlier, in an October 2011 debate on EU summits, Martin lobbied then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny to fight for a larger EU fund.
“The Taoiseach must insist at the summit that the proposal to restructure Irish bank debt must be agreed now. For bank and sovereign bailouts to restore confidence, they must be backed by a dramatically larger fund.”
In a 2015 speech at the UCC, he said that the EU had had failures and that “most bailouts, including Ireland’s” would not have been required if these failures had been addressed.
In a speech to the IIEA, he made reference to “Irish and Portuguese bailouts.”
Sinn Féin’s TD Matt Carthy said it is strange that Mícheál Martin claims the banks were not bailed out.
“It is also deeply insulting to all those families and communities that endured savage austerity as a result of that rescue. Your comments will reinforce the view that Fianna Fáil is out of place, ”he said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Skills and Higher Education, Niall Collins, today defended the Taoiseach’s comments and accused Mr. Boyd Barrett of presenting a “stupid narrative” and said that he is living in a “fantasy land”.
He said “it’s okay” for Boyd Barrett to present certain narratives about banks because “he doesn’t have to worry about the economy.”
Collins said: “Micheál Martin was clearly responding to a hint by Richard Boyd Barrett that the owners or shareholders of the banks were bailed out, and that did not happen, that was not the case, as we know, shareholders took a big hit when the banks almost collapsed, and indeed some of them collapsed.
“The banks were capitalized by the state, the state took capital in the banks,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
But Boyd Barrett said it was “quite insulting” for the Taoiseach to suggest that there was no rescue because he said “people know the pain of that rescue.”
“Nothing could be more fantastic or more stupid than the country’s Taoiseach suggesting that the bank bailout didn’t happen.”
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