Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Governments own banks all over the world and the most prominent banks in some of the best countries in terms of competition, such as Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, are government-owned. It is not a case of one size fits all regarding government-owned banks being bad and private sector banks being good. Indeed, the private sector made a fairly big mess in this country due to unbridled capitalism and all the rest of it. How come it does not interfere with competition in Germany where the Government owns KfW, for example, which is lending to the Irish State to lend to banks and small and medium enterprises, or in Switzerland where the fourth largest bank is state-owned or in France where one of the safest banks in the world is state-owned?

Somehow, the idea of having a State-owned bank here, namely, AIB, which makes €1 billion profit each year, or has started to do so, is considered bad for competition. Who told the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission? Was it the bankers? How did the CCPC come up with that analysis?