Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Are we simply to have a four-year plan that is all about more pain for ordinary people? If the four-year plan is all about deflation we will have more people unemployed, more people leaving the country and more people whose mortgages are distressed. In today's announcement of the €50 billion, there is not a word about ordinary people in their 30s and 40s who bought at the height of the boom. Both parents might have been working, with perhaps one self-employed and one in the public service. Their mortgage repayments are often from €1,200 to €2,500 a month and they are now in serious negative equity.

In the 1930s there were films, including Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds goes to Town", about bankers who stole little people's money and lives. In all of the Minister's announcement of the €50 billion for Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish Nationwide Building Society and others, there is not a word for those little people. He does not even talk about how he might approach his four-year plan and explain the kind of pain he has in mind which he will bequeath to the Opposition should the Government decide finally to go to the country and retire Fianna Fáil from government. It is long past its retirement time. What does the Minister have to say about the impact of this statement on ordinary people?

The Minister was wrong to put NAMA into the NTMA and to compromise the reputation of the one agency-----

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