Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Government has supported and protected them. The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, knows the Government has protected them and should not aggravate me now. It is the Government, the developers and Fianna Fáil who have this country the way it is. They looked after them long enough. Do not give me that rubbish now.

Fianna Fáil and the developers and the builders were side-by-side in the Galway tent, and one can see what they did to us. With them and Anglo Irish Bank, the taxpayer must bail them out and nobody has been prosecuted for it.

Deputy Power ought not vex me because it is the small person out there who has lost his or her job. These are people who are paying large mortgages. It is the taxpayer who must bail them out.

I want to finish my suggestion. Give €10,000 to the first-time buyers. At least some of that €2.7 billion would come into the coffers of the Government and the Government would be doing something good for young people and first-time buyers.

For the past ten years we had Ministers out there creating jobs in the public sector in every quango one could think of. In the case of the chairman and members of every quango, we should be told — there should be a record — of their salaries, expenses and what they are drawing down. The quangos have been the greatest scandal since the foundation of the State, and they continue. We should be closing the quangos and taking out these chief executives for the kind of money that they are getting.

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