Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. From my own experience, I can concur with almost everything that has been said here today. The behaviour of the banks has caused devastation right across the banking system and the country, in particular in rural Ireland.

I am particularly interested in Ms Lavin's evidence put forward on the engineering defaults. It absolutely reflects my experience, which is that the most responsible, viable businesses in rural areas have been shut down because of minor cash flow problems. The system has been engineered such that those businesses have been affected. The tragedy, as referred to, is that there are many people who would be alive today were it not for the way the banking system and individuals within the banks behaved right across the country. They have behaved that way only because they have been allowed to do so. That is the crux of the problem. Jobs have been lost and there has been significant emigration. All these factors combined caused the devastation. I appreciate the attendance of the delegation. We have had the bankers before us also. We, as legislators, are here to determine how we can prevent what happened from happening again and how we can right some of these wrongs.

I completely agree with the delegates' analysis of the European banking system because it is a case of the emperor having no clothes. At some point, somebody will have to say that all the quantitative easing and everything done in the background are sustaining a system that has not been fixed. What is coming down the road to us is very unpleasant indeed. Ulster Bank delegates who appeared before us referred to the number of repossessions and the loans in arrears for over 90 days. The bank openly admitted the number of repossessions would increase this year. This year will probably be more devastating than any of the previous years.

One of Mr. Beades' main points was that the regulators in this State are simply not doing their job. Is this because of a lack of will or because of the lack of a legal basis?