Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was just googling Article 45° of the Constitution. Mr. Maye made a very interesting presentation. I welcome everybody here. As my colleague, Senator Conway-Walsh mentioned, we are long supporters of the concept of public banking. Mr. Boland mentioned the comments of the former Governor of the Central Bank. I remember questioning him that day and I was surprised at his comments. I put it to him that he was in support of a Sparkassen model. He volunteered those comments, in fairness to him. I have a number of questions in this regard.

Given that there is a report, it has found its way into the programme for Government, and we have seen it in other documents, for example, with regard to the economic forum that took place, it is important to recognise the small number of people who, in the middle of an economic collapse when our banks were leaving and collapsing and going into liquidation, had a vision and the foresight to look at the gap in banking and come up with this idea, which many people thought was daft, and pursue it to a point where it is in the programme for Government and being taken very seriously by agencies. This is worthwhile and we need to encourage this type of attitude and belief.

Earlier, my colleague discussed the interaction between the Department of Finance and the witnesses. We knew where the previous Governor of the Central Bank stood on this issue. He was open to it and believed a second tier of banking was required. To the knowledge of the witnesses, where does the current Governor stand on this issue?