Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

While we certainly recognise that urgent action is needed to thwart the threat to the entire Irish economy, it is unfortunate that the banks will enjoy considerable relief on foot of the action about to be taken. It is clear that this Bill is far from perfect, as evidenced by the number of amendments tabled by the three Opposition parties. It is most unfortunate that those amendments are not acceptable. The time constraints were such that we did not even get to address many of them which sought to clarify some very important areas, not least the issue of banks headquartered inside and outside the State.

The House needs to recognise that new and better regulation is required to deal with the financial and credit institutions. This is absolutely necessary and very urgent, not just in this State but internationally. It is important that such regulation is implemented and that an appropriate body is either established or amended for this purpose because clearly the controls in place at the moment are not sufficient to police these institutions. They are simply dancing a jig around them, which is completely unacceptable. I hope that some overseeing body with full implementational capacity will be put in place to deal with that situation.

The legislation going through the House this evening is critically important for those people who are victims of prolonged Government mismanagement for upwards of ten years and who fell prey to financial institutions that conned, misled and fed them far more money than they could afford to repay. These people need to be protected as well. There are probably thousands of them, right across the State, ill at ease in their beds tonight and in fear of losing their homes. That needs to be addressed as well and I hope the Minister will invest as much time in producing a deal to address the needs of these people as he has in constructing the scheme that is before the House.

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