Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hear everything the Minister has said about waiting for the investigation to be completed and let us see what it says about the culture of the banks and whether the Central Bank says it needs additional powers, but my view is this is a criminal matter. I was raising this three or four years ago and calling it theft. I believe that it is theft but it probably is not considered theft under our laws. We make the laws and this and the previous Oireachtas have decided that this type of behaviour is not theft, whereas if this was in Iceland it would be considered theft. If it was America, bankers would be walked out of their institutions wearing handcuffs. What are we going to do to ensure that it is deemed theft? We are talking about €1 billion. This is a huge amount of money that has been taken wrongly and unlawfully from these customers, yet the banks are going to get away with it.

Many people have said that they would like class action legislation. My colleague, Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, and I have drafted class action legislation based on recommendations of the Law Reform Commission. It has passed Second Stage and it is before a committee and is awaiting a money message. Can the Minister tell the victims of the tracker mortgage scandal that he, as a senior member of Government, will ensure that a money message will be provided? Only the Government can provide this. Will he allow that legislation to proceed to Committee Stage in the Select Committee on Justice and Equality?