Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

This debate takes place just as the Central Statistics Office has announced that GNP for the third quarter has fallen by 4.9%. This is, unfortunately, not recession but depression territory for the tens of thousands of people whose jobs are at stake and for the hundreds and thousands of businesses which may be forced to close next year.

The Minister in his short comments, most of which have been published before, evaded the issue. The purpose of this debate is to allow the Minister to set out and give to the House a sense of how he is approaching this problem. The Labour Party is asking that the Minister protect the national interest over and beyond the many invested interests that are lurking in respect of all of these issues.

The banks' senior executives and boards have strong vested interests in terms of the protection of their reputations, jobs and wealth given most of them are major investors. The Minister has not identified or addressed the strategic national interest. An issue arises also in respect of whether there needs to be an Irish banking industry which is significantly dominated by Irish interests, although it may include foreign investment, as is currently the case. The fact that the Minister is unwilling to take questions indicates that he has not yet made up his mind as to what he will do. However, I know the Minister has made up his mind and that he is choosing not to tell us what he proposes to do. He informed us of three options in terms of how the State might express its interest in this regard.

I know the banks are playing hard ball. I know also that when the Minister came up with the Farmleigh formula of inviting in people such as the Mallabraca consortium, J.C. Flowers & Co. and Carlisle Investments——

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