Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It was actually my first time to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. I found the whole thing very interesting in the sense that it was a gathering of quite influential world leaders in business and politics. Those who have been attending it for quite a number of years may know of the opportunities that exist for meetings on a one-to-one basis, of which I had a number.

When I spoke at the panel discussion with the President of Poland, the Prime Minister of Denmark and the Prime Minister of Finland, I set in context what had happened to our country. It was not so much that the words used were associated with greed. I made the point that the amount of reckless lending that had gone on and the sort of system that applied - the more one loaned, the more one got in terms of remuneration and compensation - led to a point where the situation transformed into one in which property prices and lending policy became reckless. The result was that, when the bottom fell out of it, it devastated many people.

I would not say that it was the people from the Government who were very active here. There were some people on the Deputy's own side who were equally active. In that sense, I set out for an international audience the background to the situation that applied in this country in so far as the property bubble and property collapse were concerned. From this point of view, it was important to set that in context.

Ireland was always a model for other countries in terms of the judicious use of European funding and how to grow an economy. Obviously, that element of our economy was being driven by taxes from the property market. When that collapsed, it caused and is causing serious distress for a number of people because of the banking situation and the mortgage distress in which they find themselves.

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