Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle.

The issue as to whether there should be low regulation, no regulation or heavy regulation has always been regarded as a political matter in every political assembly. We must be very clear. Some phrases in the Minister's speech in some sense give the game away. One phrase is very interesting in which he refers to the "real economy". The real economy is very important. It is that for which we need capital and it is that for which we need job creation; it is to assist the traded economy, to promote experts, to achieve a balance of trade and ultimately a favourable balance of payments. However, the Minister does not say anything about the alternative economy, the economy other than the real economy; the phrase is his. The truth of the matter is that like a cancer through the international financial system, products that were not related to anything real, products based on virtual future possible yields that would in turn be translated into dividends to shareholders who, made insane for returns, gave bonuses to people to speculate and gamble.

Thus it was yesterday at the conference organised by Concern on world hunger day that Jeffrey Sachs could say that the bonuses paid in a single year on Wall Street exceeded the total budget for aid on the planet. The Minister has straight away made a distinction between the real economy and the speculative virtual instruments that were there internationally. One might say this is the lay-by in which those responsible for the Irish financial system have put their wagon as they seek to avoid responsibility. The public is asking what this guarantee scheme guarantees. Does it guarantee a return to more of the same? Is there a whit of admission in any of the people who took the decisions to be part of the international greed that they wish to change? There is none. One after another, they parade through the newspapers offering comments about what they suggest is some kind of national crisis that involves the patriotic humiliation, regardless of whether they participated in this greed. Apart from being lazy, this is stupid and will bring us little closer to a regulatory framework.

There are serious issues such as solvency, security, liquidity and capitalisation. What we discussed today was just part of that and we all want to be positive about this. However, we also all want to see some evidence somewhere of an admission that the phrase used by the Minister has some meaning. From what I heard this morning, the Minister said the model has changed. Where is the evidence that the model has changed? We are dealing with the same people. The Minister is not crucially changing their decision-making practices. There is no evidence that he is changing their attitude to capitalisation. He has no evidence that they are removing themselves from their addiction to virtual, bogus, speculative financial products and turning to what the Minister idealistically describes, and I agree with him, as the "real economy". The Minister is responsible for the real economy. After yesterday's changes, he will be paying for the unemployment. He will have to deliver what he said he would, this medicine everybody has to take, as the media likes to help him to explain.

I find an extraordinary arrogance in the Irish banking sector. There is an inability on the part of the Financial Regulator to admit he was wrong. There is an inability in the Central Bank to suggest it ever drew attention to such statutory measures as were urgently necessary to try to insulate the economy from the international madness. It is interesting that the Minister gives the game away for them in the middle of his speech. Instead of using the word "crisis" he takes their word, "disturbance", which he uses more than once in his speech. This is just a disturbance. The Minister offers a guarantee, paid for by the taxpayer, which I would describe as solid and written in steel.

The Minister states, "The State is unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteeing the current liabilities of the participating institutions until 29 September 2010." However, when he comes to provide the guarantee for the public, who are asking where is the return to the real economy with such capitalisation as will take capital projects in the public realm that have high employment content and will assist ordinary people, he goes all soft. It is not there. When the Minister comes to the one or two directors whom he "may", not "must", appoint, he refuses to say whether they will be among 15 other directors. They will be non-executive directors, hurlers on the ditch. He does not say how they will influence the decision-making of any banking process, and yet he describes a change of culture.

On page 45, having looked over the water, the officials in the Department of Finance decided they must say something about corporate social responsibility. How will this be achieved? I would like to hear the Minister say the people who have brought us to this point, the Irish Banking Federation, must make some admission, not that there was a "disturbance", so that we can remember what they did. At times the Minister spoke about light regulation. He must remember what the model was. The model said regulation slows one down, is a burden and, as my colleague, Deputy Burton, has just said, stands in the way of the new, glittery, Irish rich becoming billionaires.

I am glad of all the assurances on solvency, security and liquidity, if they are real, and I hope they are. However, I have doubts on the source from which they come, the Financial Regulator. It is time the Minister admitted the model was wrong. The model brought the world to its knees at a time of hunger. The model was wrong in Ireland and brought disastrous effects throughout Irish society. The public has no interest in providing a guarantee for more of the same. It is over. They want to hear the Minister say it is over, and they want real representation in the banks, not puppets. They want those who brought us to this disaster and the poverty of all the cuts the Minister announced yesterday to come out and say they followed a model that brought us misery. There is no sign of any of that. We are not here to solve some disturbance in a racket. We are here as parliamentarians to give voice to the people's right to an accountable, fair and sustainable banking system.

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