Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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What is the witnesses' reaction to the Government report on local public banking in Ireland? I will summarise what I see as the essence of the report and the witnesses can feel free to give a different assessment. The key lines are that there is not a compelling business case for the State to establish a new local public banking system but that there is no impediment to Irish Rural Link and so on taking action themselves although they are not going to do it with State funds. That is effectively what the report says. If they want to go and get the money and do it, there is no impediment but the State is not going to provide funds. I interpret that as being negative rather than positive about the establishment of local public banking. The bottom-line point is that the State is not going to provide money to do it. That is somewhat ironic given the amount of public money that was pumped into private banks to rescue them from the crisis. It shows clear favouritism towards the current private banking system. Is that a fair assessment? What does the Central Bank think of the report, to the extent that it has a position?