Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I will be brief. The Minister of State has been thrown into this matter at the 11th hour. This Bill has been coming along the track for a long time. There was, supposedly, deep consideration within Government circles of making the financial system robust and getting it up to a standard of best practice. The Minister's recent replies outlined that consideration. Nonetheless, at IFSRA's very first test, it was discovered that there was no sanction in any legislation for the offence of overcharging consumers.

The Minister of State will later move a hastily cobbled together offence in that regard. It is abundantly clear that systems we believed were working were not and are not working. We believed, following Rusnack, that strong internal compliance procedures within the banks were monitoring such matters and that they were being escalated to the highest level so that when problems arose somebody would take responsibility for them. That is not happening.

The Governor of the Central Bank said the culture has changed and that everything has been transformed. However, we find it is like pulling up an ivy root in that every time one pulls it, something else comes up with it. We need to apply a little caution in terms of how we debate this issue in that such debate should not be confined to a general statement and two minute contributions. Members should be provided with an opportunity to tease out the legislation.

On the last occasion, the Minister gave an extremely brief introduction of the legislation, Members asked questions and the Minister, who was confined to two minutes when responding was unable to answer them. We then proceeded to a vote and sanctioned provisions about which Members had several questions unanswered in this House. The Minister of State has been around the law for a long time in terms of practising and making it. He has experience on both sides of the fence. It is clear that if we rush through this legislation without providing Members with an opportunity to consider it or to hear from outside opinion in terms of the lessons to be learned from what is happening before our eyes, we are likely to make mistakes. A little prudence in handling this matter, coupled with a little flexibility from Government would go a long way to achieving the best possible answer at this stage.

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