Mr. Jerry Beades:

I have listened to some of the people who attended committees or participated in television programmes talk about cutting deals. The banks did not cut deals because somebody had to make a decision. Let us say a bank had a €10 million loan and something worth €100,000 so somebody had to sign off because the loan book had to be reduced by a value of €10 million. Nobody wanted to make such decisions in banks. That is what the bank problem was. What is happening with these guys now is that they are coming in and looking around. Nobody can access credit so people try to cut deals, they cut a deal but owe a couple of million of euro and the vulture fund says, "Right, give us half a million". Where is that person going to get half a million euro? The next thing is a receiver is called in and the person or persons are put out of the house.

We need a model where people can access help. If we had the public banking scenario then we would have had banking to lend to people to buy them out of debt but that was if it was left to an Irish situation. Mr. John Moran was excited about bringing in vulture funds, which was scandalous. When the history books are written on this matter, Oliver Cromwell and John Moran will be on a par because that is how serious the situation is.