Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I am loth to interrupt Deputy Higgins's flow because he is, as always, very interesting and worth listening to. I agree with him regarding the culture of banking in this country. This Government is breathing new life into something we should allow to die. We clearly need a banking system for the sake of small businesses and people who want to purchase cars and homes. Few of us can take that sort of money out of our pockets. We all borrow for major expenditure. Do we seriously believe, however, that our banks currently enjoy the confidence needed to get the economy back on its feet? We must reassure people that they can spend and that their jobs will survive because the banks will lend money to their employers. Do we expect small savers to trust a banking system in which we no longer have confidence?

We need to get rid of the people who remain embedded in the banking system because they allowed matters to continue as if nothing had happened. Until ten years ago, we had the most conservative bankers in the world. They insisted on being given a house as collateral for a loan on a car. That was a case of conservatism gone mad. However, matters really went wrong when those bankers decided to become developers.

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