Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

And you deal with this at length in your witness statement and you state that the Labour Party stood alone in opposing the bank guarantee. When the Bill was initially introduced in the Dáil on 30 September 2008, it passed Second Stage without a vote. The Labour Party didn't oppose it at that stage. The issues you put on the record in your Second Stage speech and by the then ... and by Deputy Gilmore, as leader, were narrow in nature about the publication of the guarantee scheme, about remuneration that the bankers would enjoy, about how lending practices were going to be regulated, going forward. You supported the Bill at Second Stage and opposed it, subsequently, but can you just outline to us how your alternative would have worked? What were you actually advocating at that time in the teeth of that crisis?