Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The people that are looking in will judge for themselves. As I said, a number of mistakes are outlined in two reports. There are lots of small mistakes and little issues. I understand, having been in business for 30 years, that companies go bankrupt and go into liquidation but people persistently ask, what is the point of regulators? Ashtrays on motorbikes is how people who have come to me referred to regulators. Our last regulator told us that the banks were fully capitalised but we know how that ended. It is not good enough for any of our guests to come in here and say "Ah sure, these things happen". The taxpayer and the Exchequer are always on the hook for the mistakes made by Departments and regulators. Nobody seems to be accountable. Mistakes are identified, they are regrettable but the money for them comes out of everyone's pocket at a rate of 2%. First we had PMPA; then we had Quinn, Setanta and the others that have been mentioned. We will not go back to the regulator because it was not Mr. Makhlouf but I very much hope that our banks are capitalised and that he is on top of it, unlike his predecessor. We will be paying for that mistake for generations.