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Ireland: Financial Assistance

My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the statements made by the German Chancellor and the French President at Deauville a month ago and thereafter were singularly unhelpful? I refer to the declarations in relation to the rate of interest and to tax levels in the Republic of Ireland and the demand that bondholders should bear a substantial part of the loss. Her Majesty's Government should be congratulated most warmly on having abjured any temptation to trespass on or to demean in any way Irish sovereignty and to accept those realities of geography, history and commercial intertwining which bind our two countries so closely together.