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

That is exactly the point I am making. It is not acceptable that there is one law for workers and another for business. It is even less acceptable that it applies to bailed out banks, over policies of which we do not exercise any control. The Minister might have an argument if he exercised some control over their lending and investment policies and their treatment of distressed mortgage holders. With members of the public, we have pleaded with him to do this in recent years, given that we bailed out and nationalised the banks. It is an utter scandal that, having bailed them out and nursed them back to profitability, at the very moment they are starting to make money, we give them back to the private sector which benefits from carried forward losses and will have virtually no or, in any case, a greatly reduced tax liability.