John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To further expand on Senator Horkan's questions on the GRG group and what is happening in the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority, FCA, in the UK ordered the report in 2014 into the allegations of 12,000 small businesses that it was meant to help - and I am reading from an article in the Financial Timesand when the independent report was leaked to the BBC, that report is said to have found that 92% of viable businesses put into GRG experienced inappropriate action, such as unnecessary fees and only 10% of the companies that were put into GRG to be assisted actually returned to the bank. These are figures from a recent report in the UK.

Last year Royal Bank of Scotland, RBS, set aside £400 million to compensate small businesses. If you are compensating the small businesses that were affected by what happened to them in GRG, then that in itself is admitting you did not help them, that they were inappropriately put into this particular scheme in the UK and they were inappropriately then dealt with.

If I relate that to what is happening in Ireland, it is in effect the same thing and to a degree, and with respect to both Mr. Mallon and Blair, this is groundhog day. It is the same thing over and over again. I am interested in the aspect of the debate around GRG that relates to the number of businesses that were put into GRG that were associated with other businesses, other than the core business. What efforts were made by the bank to separate out the performing loans before the person was pushed through to GRG and then out? Why did the bank not make an effort in those years to save the better parts of the performing companies and businesses that had their accounts in the bank before you sent them all off? It was as if a decision was made to bundle the good, bad and the ugly into one basket and send them to GRG.