Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have made Mr. Tobin aware of it now and, like my Bill, it is nice and short. At the time the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, was the majority shareholder in three of the banks. I will read the response again. It states: "Notwithstanding its voluntary nature, I expect that best practice dictates that the code be applied by all institutions to all classes of residential property." The then Minister for Finance said this and obviously the reply would have been approved by the Department's general secretary or Secretary General; regardless of whichever version Mr. Tobin wants to use, it does not make much of a difference. The then Minister said the code should be applied. The change of heart seems to have occurred when somebody actually said: "Do you know something? Since 1991 no bank has ever applied this code and maybe we should do something about it." As soon as somebody says we should do something about it, officials are telling us that the sky will fall in.