Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will put it in the context of our past experience although we are dealing with future law which cannot be applied to the past, lest anyone think I am suggesting anything else. The majority of the public believe that what happened in Anglo Irish Bank was reckless and there was reckless lending. The layperson believes that and I certainly believe that. I also understand that we do not have any law against reckless lending in itself so one cannot suggest it was a crime because there was no law against it.

Would the definition proposed by the Law Reform Commission in terms of conscious, objective recklessness be sufficient to ensure that individuals could be prosecuted if another institution engaged in a repeat of the activities evident in Anglo Irish Bank, for example? That is the test I would put to any insertion of reckless lending into primary legislation. Could we prosecute? Could we jail the bankers in the future if they continue to do what they did in the past? In my view, as I said to some of them, they should have been jailed for what they did, but it was not a crime and that is our fault. That is the fault of the establishment, the people who did not pass laws to make those actions a crime. We are now proposing to make such actions a crime. In Mr. Byrne's view, would that allow for the prosecution of individuals if a scenario such as that which occurred in the past were to unfold in the future?