Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

This is very important legislation. The Minister is taking into account the importance of this House, this Legislature. The Bill proposes to give responsibility to the Minister, to the custodian of the country's financial system, and we as his colleagues, as legislators, can question him at any time, either in the House or in committee, on any aspect of the financial system. We can take back the powers that perhaps may have been given over to others. The Minister will also have the advice of the Governor of the Central Bank and the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the officials in his Department and the Governor of the European Central Bank. There is no point in us tying the hands of either the Minister for Finance or the banking system with regard to the rejuvenation of the economy.

People talk about an overhang in the market but this is not the first time we have had a crisis. In the 1920s there was an international crisis and in the 1970s the banks had neither reserves nor resources to give mortgages to people. In the 1980s, from 1987 to 1990, the same situation prevailed and the economy ultimately delivered.

See this speech in context