Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I think people will agree that in recent months we have seen the unthinkable happen — a run on a bank where many Irish people had deposits, a huge fall in the value of Irish financial institutions on the stock markets because of fears of excessive exposure to the property market and the collapse in value of the new securitised instruments. How would we deal with a crisis if it occurred? It is significant the Minister did not address that question in his response, but dealt solely with the part of the question concerning anticipation. Does he believe changes need to be made to our deposit protection scheme, which is now much worse for Irish depositors in financial institutions than applies in the United Kingdom scheme, which was triggered by the Northern Rock collapse? Does Ireland need to manage its exposure more robustly, for example, by examining the issue of risk management?

As the Minister will recall, the Central Bank's report for last year provided a series of early warning signs. It noted that credit growth here was the highest in Europe, our reliance on property-related lending was excessive, as was the level of risk-taking in certain areas, and the funding gap was widening. How does the Minister propose to pre-empt any possible threat to an Irish financial institution?

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