Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Professor Lane and wish him good luck in his new appointment, on which I congratulate him. It is a significant appointment not just for him personally, but for Ireland. We are in the tenth year since the banking collapse. Professor Lane will agree that ordinary people in Ireland made many sacrifices to bail out the banks. Many people lost their jobs and many took wage reductions and tax increases. There is, however, close to full employment in the economy now, as is reflected in the Central Bank's report.

I am concerned that the banks are, in many ways, back to their old tricks. The atmosphere today is very similar to that of the years before the financial collapse. Mr. Draghi takes the view, one that Professor Lane may share, that a moral hazard arises when people fail to pay their mortgage debts. We all understand the concept behind that. What I do not understand, however, and I would like Professor Lane to comment on this, is why the lobbying for the return of very high salaries and improved salaries in the banks which were bailed out has continued apace. There is also lobbying for the return of bonuses. I know some of this is a decision for the Minister for Finance, but does Professor Lane believe the cap on pay for bankers and chief executives which is in force in the bailed out banks should be relaxed? In recent weeks, there has been renewed lobbying by a number of banks to raise that pay cap and to return to a culture of extraordinarily high pay for bankers. Moral hazard seems to exist only for little people who have a single residential mortgage on their homes, whereas the banks seem to be back to their old tricks. Will Professor Lane comment on that? Would it be wise for us as a country to allow bankers to be paid annual salaries of more than €500,000 or €600,000? Would the Central Bank resist that? As he departs, does Professor Lane have any advice as regards what would be best for Ireland to do?

Alongside that there has been a return to a massive escalation in land prices, particularly in all the major cities and towns. It went absolutely off the Richter scale in the two or three years before the collapse. That is the second reason I am concerned that we have not fully learned the lessons of the past. I would like to hear Professor Lane's response to that as Governor of the Central Bank.