Ms Sinéad Dooley:

I am delighted that the Chairman wants to bring in some gender balance but I have nothing more than my gender to offer. My learned colleagues have been very eloquent in their presentation. I thank the Chairman and the committee for affording us the opportunity to make a presentation. It is heartening to see the level of support around the table. It is obvious from their knowledge of the concept we are speaking about today that every Deputy and Senator who spoke has done their homework. I hope we can harness that support and put pressure on the Department of Finance, which is the key to all of this, to let it see the merits.

There is a lot of discussion around the national planning framework and our plan for 2020 and Rebuilding Ireland. While we all talk of infrastructure and investment in telecommunications, we believe that investment in our banking sector is equally important in trying to achieve balanced regional development. That is the message today, that if we are serious about balanced regional development we need to consider every aspect. Nobody has remained at a standstill post-crash since 2008. It is unbelievable to think that we would accept that our banking sector would remain in a standstill position. We need to consider every sector. Everybody had to think about how to do business after the crash and it makes perfect sense that the banking sector should do likewise and see how we can build sustainable pillars and not the pillars of salt we had in the past. We need to look seriously to rebuilding Ireland. Our citizens deserve that. I thank the committee and any pressure it can bring to bear to bring forward that report for further debate will be very welcome.