Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

It is an appalling debate in which to be involved. The situation is far worse than any of us thought even a week ago. It is difficult to find anything optimistic to say or to support the Government in its difficulty. It is good that Bank of Ireland is not in deep trouble. It looks as if it can be helped out of its difficulty fairly easily without much cost to the taxpayer. Bank of Ireland has always been a bulwark of the economy. Allied Irish Banks, through mismanagement, followed the lead of Anglo Irish Bank. It came to property speculation late but when it did get involved it did so with a vengeance. It has found itself in a difficult situation and it is a costly rescue. We should congratulate Irish Life & Permanent for not being involved at all and not making any call on taxpayers' money tonight. Beyond that, the situation of Anglo Irish Bank is an absolute disaster.

In the various banking debates in the past two years, we in the Opposition have been generally supportive of the Government's difficulties. We supported the guarantee in the first instance. However, I have lost faith in the Government's ability to provide us with the facts. Ministers no longer have credibility. The reason is that when the guarantee was made on 30 September 2008 we had a new Minister for Finance who had no background in finance or economics. He has learned fast and has proven to be effective since but at that time he was new to the area. We should consider who were his advisers - the then Governor of the Central Bank, the then regulator, and the then senior officials in the Department of Finance, all of whom were incompetent. They did not protect the public interest and on the night when they were advising the Minister, they were hiding their mistakes.

Then the Minister invited in the key bankers who gave him financial advice. Who were they? Mr. Seán FitzPatrick, and the then chief executive and chairman of Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland and Mr. Fingleton was on the telephone. Their advice was to give the banks a guarantee to rescue them and they said that everything was fine. It was only three weeks previously that both the regulators and the senior bankers assured committees of the House that they had tested the loan portfolios in their banks and that they were the soundest banks in Europe. They said there was no problem. There was no question of insolvency. The Minister was caught in a situation where everyone advising him had a vested interest, to say the least of it. If lying was an Olympic sport we would win gold every year if we togged out four bankers. There would be no problem in that regard. On that night the truth was not being told in Merrion Street by the senior bankers. The Minister, Deputy Martin, knows that well.

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