Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

None the less, the Minister made the argument and I shall not sit here all night making that argument. He made the point, but I do not understand the double standard. It is unfair that very wealthy people who owed money to a bank, in corporate loans, were facilitated with big write-downs for companies that they bought. There might have been other companies that had loans and were paying them back fully but did not receive big write-downs. Siteserv was propped up and benefitted from a massive write-down, and we know of other examples. What about all the companies that made repayments? They were disadvantaged. A moral hazard existed, but that did not seem to matter because we were talking about big corporate loans and, possibly, because we were talking about very wealthy people. I do not know the reason for such treatment. It was a case of double standards, because the issue of moral hazard was not invoked. An attitude was adopted that moral hazard should be avoided at all costs. The moral hazard excuse is invoked in the case of the poor distressed mortgage holder who wants to get the same discount on his or her mortgage that a vulture fund gets. I do not understand the double standards and inconsistency in that regard. At the very least, people deserve transparency, and to know the discount that a vulture fund gets which is the point of the amendment.