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

And you referred in your opening to the need for trust, if I understood you correctly, between banks and regulator and you refer on a number of occasions that primary responsibility resided with the banks themselves for much of what they were doing. Mr. Neary, why should you trust the banks? I mean, you're a person more or less of my own generation. Do you not remember in 1984 the scandal of Insurance Corporation of Ireland, an affiliate of AIB, which cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds? Do you not remember the tribunal findings regarding Ansbacher and nefarious activities in that bank? Do you remember the bogus offshore accounts which the banks had to restitute the taxpayer to the tune of ... masses in any case? So, on what basis did you decide that these profit-seeking institutions would act like gentlemen or ladies?