Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Why does the Deputy not listen? He might learn something. The notion that it would take more than two years to resolve matters relating to a group of 100 customers is entirely extraordinary. This leads me to the view that the fundamental cause of what happened in Anglo Irish Bank was a failure of political governance as a result of the influence of the type of crony capitalism to which the Minister referred in his interview with the Financial Times on St. Patrick's Day in 2009. The interview to which I refer appeared on the front page of that publication and continued on one of the inside pages. I am sure the Minister remembers the interview well because it was given significant coverage.

The Minister has made a disastrous series of connected blunders in respect of his handling of the Anglo Irish Bank crisis, which has brought the remaining elements of the banking system that were capable of being saved to the brink of destruction.

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