Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In the interest of further transparency, I believe the Clerk to the Committee wishes me to acknowledge a relationship. Mr. Dick Spring is my uncle and we are currently talking to each other, and I hope we will be talking after this meeting.

In a spirit of fairness, I am putting the same questions to them as I put earlier to the witnesses from Bank of Ireland.

The resale of the bank will be ultimately determined by the level of interest from the private markets. They will look at the cash flow and the ability of the borrowers to make repayments. The ESM is the potential mechanism by which the bank can be recapitalised and refunded and ultimately taken over by an institution that can firewall it and provide it with the ability to accelerate growth in our economy. I am sure they have seen what the IMF had to say about the ESM yesterday. Have the witnesses a strategy for the way the bank should go forward? Should it be sold to the private market or is the ESM the preferred route?

I know that Dr. Somers had a great deal of experience in the funding of the banks. The funding of banks can come from the European Central Bank, deposit holders, the wholesale markets and so on. The current multilayered approach is more suited to the private market. However I, together with some of my colleagues, believe that if we could access further ECB funding we could ultimately reduce the cost of funding to the banks and pass on that to the stressed borrowers. Will the witnesses comment on that?