Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I am asking a question. When we have the opportunity now, will this regulatory supervision extend to curtailing the activities of people dealing with other people's moneys so that they concentrate on the business on which they are supposed to concentrate, such as the AIB becoming involved in insurance and some fellow over in London taking risks on the back of a cigarette packet and we have to bail them out?

Regulatory supervision and the regulatory authorities are vitally important. I ask the Minister, in addition to reporting back on the operation of the scheme to the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, of which I am a member, to give the House a guarantee that we will have a regular report from the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank on the activities of all the financial institutions and that we will not be forced to go, cap in hand, to ask these people to please come in and explain themselves. Now we have an opportunity to put in place structures for proper and adequate supervision. It is fair and reasonable to put restrictions on institutions because of their importance in the whole structure of society, to say they are not to become involved in other business and that they are to stick to their own business. If building societies had continued on the road on which they were established, they would be giving mortgages and banks would not have been involved in that market. We all want to do other people's business and it is time that we decided that a banker should stick to banking, an insurer should stick to insurance and a building society should stick to giving loans to people. I ask the Minister if he agrees or disagrees with my proposal.

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