Taoiseach Brian Cowen has been accused of giving the Dáil and the country "a bum steer on the banks for a very long time”.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said “a loan or an overdraft or call it what you want, money from the EU” was required to be put into the banks.
Accusing Mr Cowen of giving a “bum steer” he said: “I think that the House is entitled to, and the country is entitled to at least the ballpark figure for what is required for the banks out of this €85 billion.”
Speaking during Leader's Questions, the Taoiseach declined to say how much was being advanced as an “overdraft” because it was still in negotiation, but that “of the order of €85 billion is a figure that has been discussed” and it was “not a three figure sum”.
Mr Gilmore said: “It would be preferable and add a little bit of certainty to the public discussion if you would give at least a ballpark figure for what the banks are going to require rather than have a situation that will continue from today over the weekend.”
Mr Gilmore said: “We have to drag the information out of you. This isn’t private business. This is public business, and we’re in the unusual situation that you and your Government in its final days are in the process of negotiating what you now call a very big overdraft on behalf of the people of the country. This is an overdraft that as late as a week ago you were denying that you were applying for in the first place.”
Mr Gilmore said the Taoiseach claimed if the State had gone down the route in January 2009 that the Labour Party advocated of temporary nationalisation everything would be worse. “If we had gone down that route we’d be coming out of the problem now, and we wouldn’t have our banks mired in the whole Nama process,” Mr Gilmore insisted.
However, Mr Cowen told the Labour leader: “Your assertion that there’s bum steers being given is blown away by the fact that the European partners and the banks and institutions are supportive and agree that the decisions we have made in this matter have been the right decisions to make.”
He said: “You continue to put it about . . . a temporary nationalisation of the bank, you wouldn’t have had a Nama that you kick it further down the road, you wouldn’t get the segregation of assets, we wouldn’t get the cost of the distressed assets, we wouldn’t have parked them some where else outside the banking system.”
Mr Cowen said: “With all due respect, that’s a bum steer. That’s precisely a bum steer. This is where your policy falls apart. You don’t have a policy that is supported by anybody.”
Earlier Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny had pressed the Taoiseach to tell the House the amount of funding that would be provided, the level of interest rates and the proportion for the banks.
He said there was "serious concern about the scale of debt that the country was incurring". He asked the Taoiseach how he proposed "to ensure a fair sharing of the costs between the taxpayers and the investors in the banks including some of the bondholders in a way that protects the Irish State from bankruptcy".
The Taoiseach repeatedly insisted the issues were "sensitive" and negotiations were proceeding "as quickly as possible".
He said: "The sustainability of our debt burden is an important part of how we proceed here as well. I am confident that if we get an outcome we can be in a position to confirm that we're in a position to manage that situation."