Michael Mulcahy (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share my time with Deputy Paul Gogarty, with the permission of the House. As the famous saying goes, those who do not learn from their mistakes are condemned to repeat them. This is, without doubt, the most serious financial crisis in the history of the State, brought about by a combination of factors which all occurred in a relatively short period of time: an international financial crisis, an international recession, a property bubble in Ireland, the failure of financial regulation in Ireland, and a completely reckless spending spree carried out by some of our banks. That is why I welcome the banking inquiry which has been set in train by this Government and which is now in its first phase. I understand that first phase, which is doing the preparatory work, will report some time during the summer. The second phase of that inquiry will be a fully sworn commission of inquiry under the commission of inquiry legislation. I believe such an inquiry is extremely important. The people deserve to know exactly how this crisis came about. That is the least we owe them.

The figures given today by the Minister for Finance were truly horrendous. There is up to €18.3 billion for Anglo Irish Bank, which does not include the €4 billion already given, €2.6 billion for the INBS, the money already invested in Bank of Ireland and AIB and the further moneys that might have to be invested in those companies. These are extraordinarily large amounts of money. The public is correctly concerned about this and has every right to be concerned. The Minister echoed that concern in his speech. However, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs said, there must be a proper pathway out of this crisis and, in fairness to the Government, it has produced that pathway.

If one examines in detail the legislation passed by the Government since September 2008 when the crisis first started, one will notice that the preamble to each measure sets out clearly that the background to each Act is the severity of the economic crisis. In rough chronological order the measures taken were the bank guarantee announced on 30 September 2008, various budgetary cuts, the pension levy, the NAMA legislation, the recapitalisation of the banks and the banking inquiry which I have mentioned. Earlier, I heard Deputy Michael Noonan chastising the Minister for Finance for being tardy. I reject that.

See this speech in context