Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

We are here to debate what is an obvious crisis and also to look for ways out of it, which I believe exist. We should acknowledge the situation and what got us into it. We should acknowledge that cheap money and, yes, bad planning led to a property bubble which was one of the worst developments in the history of the State, and left young people with mountainous mortgages they will have to spend their lives paying off. We must acknowledge there was systematic failure in our banking system, in its basic task of assessing risk and also, it is becoming apparent, in terms of individual abuses which have undermined the confidence of the people of this country and those outside in the working arrangements within that banking system.

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