Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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While the Minister has not met victims to engage directly on this issue, he has met them many times because one out of every 60 households was affected by this scandal, this theft on a massive scale. That leads me to ask whether this is going to present itself again. It will not be a tracker mortgage scandal, a scandal around payment into protection insurance or an over-charging scandal. It will be some other scandal. Why do I say that with such conviction? I say it because the bankers are getting away with it. They are getting away with the biggest theft in the history of the State.

What I would like to do now is forget about our political allegiances. Let us forget which parties we represent and our ideology. Let us put the interest of Irish citizens first and foremost. What are we going to do to make sure this never happens again? What are we going to do to make sure that if bankers try to steal money from their own customers like this again, they will face long terms in prison? They should be as afraid as the woman in Cork who stole a bottle of perfume worth €70 and is spending time in prison. They need to know there will be repercussions to their actions. What do we do in terms of legislation, oversight or powers provided by the Oireachtas to ensure there will be accountability at the end of this? What is the Minister's plan? I am willing to work with him. I hope to publish legislation this week - it was with the Ceann Comhairle's office before Christmas - that will see bankers going to prison if they provide false or misleading information to the Central Bank. There is a lacuna in the law here, which the Central Bank highlighted to the Minister's predecessor a number of years ago. There has still been no action on it. What are we going to do to make sure that accountability will ring loudly through the corridors of banks throughout this State, to make sure they will never get away with this type of behaviour ever again?