Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I support the amendment. It is high time that inspectors were appointed and that the Director of Corporate Enforcement should be heading for the High Court on instructions from the Minister to ensure an inspector would be established under the Companies Act and that this matter could be dealt with in a proper fashion as befits taxpayers' money.

Anglo Irish Bank was the reason the Minister came into the House in the first instance regarding the original guarantees. Anglo Irish Bank was the bank going to the wall on that occasion. There was a late night visit to the Taoiseach, supported by some of the other banks and legislation was passed to give a €450 billion open-ended guarantee. The situation in Anglo Irish Bank has deteriorated still further. More information has come to our attention since that time and we are now being presented with a no-choice situation to nationalise a bank with a balance sheet in the region of €100 billion, with something in the region of €70 billion in liabilities in loans and other mechanisms. We do not know to any detailed extent what are the liabilities we are taking on.

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