Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

There is a match on television. The Deputy should get in tune with the real Ireland.

There is no confidence in the banks. After the investment of €22 billion in Anglo Irish Bank, the investment in Bank of Ireland and AIB, the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, and the transfer of the impaired assets, we still do not have a functioning banking system that is providing credit lines to business and householders. The Minister's reputation is at risk because of this.

Tomorrow we will debate the terms of reference of the commission of inquiry into banking. I thank the Minister for extending the period under scrutiny to include the period from the night of the guarantee at the end of September 2008 to 15 January 2009, when Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised. I am glad he has done that. However, he should allow the commission to scrutinise the advice the Minister was given as well. I believe the Minister was in a situation where he took decisions without full information. I do not believe he knew the extent of the indebtedness of Anglo Irish Bank on 29 September, when he extended the guarantee to all its liabilities, or its full indebtedness when it was nationalised on 15 January 2009. I do not believe the Minister knew what was happening in the valuation the banks were putting on the assets that transferred to NAMA. I believe he was as surprised as anybody else by the second business plan for NAMA which we received yesterday.

What has happened is extraordinary. The banks' advice to the Department should be subject to the examination. Otherwise, as frequently happens in this country, the political head of the Department will be left holding the can when, in my view, he is blameless on the issue. He worked on the basis of the advice before him. It is in the Minister's and everybody's interest to have this area illuminated as well and to have the truth of the advice brought forward.

See this speech in context