Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I accept that as a public servant Mr. Fraser does not make the policy but there is extreme concern among some Deputies who represent working class people about the IFSC Clearing House Group operation.

One cannot describe it, as Mr. Fraser did, as normal industry-Government meetings and relationships. This is an unprecedented structured access by the biggest hitters in the financial markets system in the Europe to the highest levels of the Government, chaired by the Irish Prime Minister. Deputy Boyd Barrett in particular and I have raised this directly with the Taoiseach on many occasions in the past two years - the people who have this unprecedented inner corridor to the very heart power in this State, include representatives from Allied Irish Banks, Bank of Ireland, Citigroup, Zurich, IBEC, PricewaterhouseCoopers and so on. In the briefing material the Department has provided, the point is made that membership of the Clearing House Group includes senior public sector and industry representatives. There are a number of specialised working groups in the areas of banking and treasury, insurance, pension funds, asset management. These are chaired by industry representatives who also sit on the Clearing House Group for the duration of their tenure as Chairs of the particular groups.

Let me put it to Mr. Fraser that this is the kind of inside track that lobbyists in other industries could only hallucinate about. This is corporate government as far as the financial service, the big banks and the major financial institutions. The irony is that the very forces whose activities crashed the financial system five years ago as a result of their unbridled speculation and profiteering are now being given the responsibility for clearing up the mess, sitting in the lap of the Government or vice versa . Mr. Fraser cannot say anything other than these private institutions have unprecedented influence on Government policy.

I am asking Mr. Fraser making a note of one or two of these points because I have limited time and he can reply to them in sequence.

The minutes provide no transparency in any sense. It is slightly helpful to know what was discussed but it really does not tell the full story is in any sense, the issue is the access and the immediate availability at the very heart of Government by these massively powerful industry players in the financial market system, which I contend in reality is a dictatorship over the European Union.

At the January meeting of the IFSC Clearing House Group, the issue of REITs, real estate investment trusts was raised, the Secretary General of the Department of Finance and Public Expenditure went so far as to suggest that to parallel the IFSC, they might establish a real estate services group type of set up along the same lines. What discussions are going on in regard to this? The suggestion of a global centre of excellence for property - and a company was mentioned, Annaly Capital, a United States real estate speculator - coming in and being a major player in this country. I have seen a suggestion elsewhere that this is an excellent time to come into the "Irish market", and similar to NAMA, take over properties at a haircut price which was subsidised by the taxpayer and now there is a proposal that these people come in and buy up property at the lowest rate and make a massive killing when the property appreciates at the expense of the people. Is it proposed that companies can buy mortgage portfolios in this country, which would be an issue of great concern to ordinary people?