Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Professor Honohan also stated:

Second, the wisdom of leaving senior management in place while providing an open-ended guarantee to two institutions [could that be Fianna Fáil's friends in Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building Society?] which – it should have been clear – were on the road to insolvency does not seem to have been considered.

That is a condemnation of this pathetic Government by the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan. Will the Minister put that in his list of quotations and quietly read it at night the way monks used to read books of prayers? It might actually bring forth what is appropriate at this point – a little bit of humility from the Government so we can work our way out of this banking crisis.

See this speech in context