Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Coming from a different point of view on the last point, would it be fair to say that competition in the Irish banking sector has been a disaster and that all the reckless lending practices by banks that we saw when there were more people in the market helped to contribute to the last economic crash? Indeed, when we look outside the pillar banks - not that the pillar banks are saints, by any stretch - at the non-bank lenders, the vulture funds are charging extortionate interest rates, some well in excess of the ECB rates. So-called additional competition has been damaging at just about every level for the Irish economy and for Irish society. Would that not be a fair comment on the actual experience as against theories of competition?