Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I hope he is away doing important business for Ireland on the EU or connected with jobs and not out canvassing. Government can no longer be business as usual with members of Fianna Fáil canvassing every corner, every GAA club, every race meeting and football match. They have no time to read reports because they are out there canvassing for the next election and the election after that. The actions of the Minister, the Taoiseach and their Cabinet are the equivalent of short selling on the Stock Exchange which was properly banned recently. The Minister should stop short selling Ireland. His Cabinet and Government should get down to trying to restore this economy in the time remaining to them. It is a difficult and challenging job. The answers are not easy. Nobody on the Opposition benches has all of the answers but the revelations yesterday were stunning and depressing.

I received the summary of the Bank of Ireland statement this morning. The Minister's address to us did not address either the important points brought forward by the Fine Gael spokesperson or the content of this statement which makes several points. The provision for bad debts up to 30 March is €1.4 billion, and approximately 45% of the increase arises from property and construction. It has revised its forecast for the three years to March 2011 from €3.8 billion to €4.5 billion and, in case of additional loan impairments, adds another €1.5 billion. That brings the total to €6 billion. Unfortunately, the Minister did not give us this information to analyse the quality of his €7 billion proposal. Allied Irish Banks is significantly bigger than Bank of Ireland. There are suggestions, particularly from the bank itself, that it is stronger because it has overseas investments which yield good returns. If the €6 billion in the Bank of Ireland statement, which the markets are parsing and analysing, is true, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the AIB figure for the same period could be €7 billion to €8 billion. I do not know whether the Minister agrees or whether his officials have given him suggested figures. Those figures come to €13 billion or €14 billion. The Minister is putting in €7 billion and tells us that he will look at the balance.

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