Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy is well aware, in any primary legislation there is an amount of time before the regulations come in. This is priority legislation and understandable pressure has been imposed on the Government by the troika to ensure it would be introduced. There is very little point in the Oireachtas passing the Bill but then not bringing forward the regulations. While I do not have an exact date, it is a priority issue.

I attended a conference recently where a Supreme Court judge spoke about the operation of all the legislation that has come from these Houses in recent years in terms of how the financial crisis has been dealt with. He made a valid point that it is the heart of prudential lending, that we have a totally different view of risk and, more importantly, of the assessment of information and the quality of it. There is collective support for that on all sides of Dáil Éireann. It is important that we get this right and much of the fleshing out of the regulations will bring clarity.

The other point that was made by the Supreme Court judge is that sometimes one just has to get on and do it, and even if mistakes are made, so be it. The important thing is that the great majority of what we are attempting to do is right and proper for the future prudential risk within the banking sector. The legislation is a priority and we want to get on with it. On Report Stage I might have a more exact timeframe for the regulations.