Ned O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

They will not be embarrassing for me.

I grew up in a house in which finance was discussed and this economy used to have high interest rates to discipline the economy. During the past ten or 12 years, although Japan has set both low and zero interest rates, it still has not emerged from its difficulties. The only way in which one can discipline an economy is to have higher levels of interest. Low interest rates and zero interest rates were set in America four or five years ago and further back but it has not done them any good. If one wishes to stop spending, one must make it expensive to spend and we should have done that. I remember the 1950s and 1960s when de Valera and Seán Lemass were in power. They used to operate credit squeezes and would increase interest rates. The Central Bank then had much greater authority and control than is the case at present. While one criticises the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank, this might not be justified because of the Single Market and of events in Europe, which governed them to an extent. Perhaps we are taking a wrong direction. Although we have been boastful about reducing interest rates, it appears the financial institutions are not able to lower such interest rates as they should.

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