HARSH WORDS have been exchanged between EU Affairs minister Lucinda Creighton and Fianna Fáil senator Paschal Mooney over the cut to the interest rates on Ireland’s EU-IMF loans.

Mooney had accused Creighton of repeating “a lie” that Fianna Fáil had been “disengaged from European Council meetings” during efforts to deal with its debt burden being taken on as a result of the Troika loans.

“You’re taking credit for something that is multilateral,” Mooney accused, saying he could produce documents showing that Ireland’s participation at Council meetings was the fifth-highest of the 27 EU member states.

“The minister has repeated, in my presence, a lie,” the senator claimed. “That’s what I’m annoyed with. I will give you the credit, but why keep repeating an untruth?”

Creighton responded by accusing Mooney of using “unparliamentary language” and saying his accusations were untrue.

“Frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about, because you weren’t there,” the minister charged. “How dare you… I will not come before this House if you accuse me of being a liar.”

Mooney withdrew his remarks after urges by the Leas-Cathaoirleach, Denis O’Donovan – himself a Fianna Fáil member.

“You might wish to reflect on what you said to the minister – it is unparliamentary,” he said.

Earlier, Creighton had said it was “abundantly clear that at this point in time”, there was no prospect of the ECB agreeing to an Irish write-down of its sovereign bonds.

She also said the government was seeking to make Ireland’s economy “more nimble” and attacked opponents of the new EU fiscal compact deal for failing to contribute alternative proposals.

“There’s no easy way out of this,” Creighton said. “I’m not aware of any alternative option coming from this house, or indeed any other house, coming up with an idea of how better we do it.”