Mr. Peter Brown:

I am not here to defend the capital markets or the Green Paper. However, now that we owe the capital markets €220 billion there is very little we can do about the fact that we are involved in it. We are not going to be uninvolved in the capital markets any time soon. If it was up to me I would do financial markets education in schools so that school leavers would understand the difference between a variable and a tracker, understand the difference between different investment products and understand the effect that financial markets have on everyone's lives in their lifetime. I fully agree with the Deputy that it is stunning how the financial markets can affect people's lives, wealth, jobs and security throughout their lives. That is the way it is. Once we have a capitalist society which chooses to borrow from the financial markets we are involved in the financial markets.

I am in favour of improving the financial markets from the investor side. Investors here have €90 billion worth of retail deposits sitting in the bank, accepting risk but not getting a return. They are using banks like a safety deposit box - they have some risk and are not getting a return for it. They have missed out on the second greatest bond market rally this State has ever seen. The reality is that the people who have walked away with all the money from the Irish bond market rally are foreign investors because nobody has educated the Irish investor to understand that there are other ways to make money in the capital markets besides deposits. We need to educate people and open the financial markets and make them easier to access for the investor and the SME, so that the SME is not stuck all the time going to non-competitive banks to borrow their money. That is an improvement. In Ireland we are past the point of whether one likes the financial markets, because we owe so much money. We are slaves to the bond market. The interest rate we pay on our bonds is the most important determining factor of the future of this economy for decades to come, whether we like it or not. It is hugely important how much we pay for our debt and at what rate we fund our debt. Whoever earns interest from our debt is also hugely important. I would much prefer to see Irish investors earn the interest from our debt than foreign hedge funds, which is exactly what has happened. I am not here to defend the financial markets - but we are in them.