David Norris (Independent)

I am a little surprised to come back to the House and hear what seem to be echoes of the American Congress debate, which I thought was disgraceful, particularly the behaviour of the Republicans. George Bush was a rotten President and has now shown he cannot even deliver his own maggoty troops and Mr. Mc Cain is a person who has fought for the past 20 years against any regulation in the financial industry. If the Americans put Mr. McCain in as President, they will deserve every financial calamity that occurs and every foreign policy result. This crisis all came about through greed and started with people like Thatcher and Bush.

I have not yet had an opportunity to look at the Bill, but I hope there will be something in it to protect the homes of the people. A number of people here — mine was not the only voice — spoke about the dangers of giving excessive mortgages of 100% or 110% and the danger of negative equity. Now people are caught and there have been repossessions. Some 126 orders were granted in the past year for the repossession of homes by financial institutions and 104 went to the Circuit Court. This must stop. If taxpayers are bailing out the financial institutions, ordinary, decent, working people, who were squeezed by them when they did not give a damn about their customers, must be protected.

I wish to raise one other issue. We have often spent time discussing the Middle East.