Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann, recognising that:

reckless and incompetent management, regulation and oversight of the domestic Irish banking system has damaged domestic and international confidence in Ireland's economy;

the Irish economy cannot recover from the deepening economic depression without a functioning banking system that enjoys the trust of depositors, international markets and the community at large;

there is growing market scepticism that the recently announced €7 billion recapitalisation plan for AIB and Bank of Ireland has been designed in a way that can restore the health of the Irish financial system and credit availability to Irish businesses and families; and

there is a public perception that the resolution of this banking crisis is being manipulated in the interests of powerful and wealthy elites and that unless the Government addresses this suspicion in an open and transparent manner, it will not have the legitimacy needed to gain the necessary support for the painful measures needed to put our public finances and economy back on a sounder footing;

calls on the Government to:

take more decisive action to restore the financial health and reputation of the Irish banking system as a prudent and responsible manager of investors' capital and depositors' savings and as a reliable source of credit for Irish businesses;

engage more decisively with other EU governments to agree a common EU model of bank recapitalisation and bad debt resolution that ensures that losses are absorbed first and foremost not by taxpayers but by those who took on the risk of funding the risky lending policies of the banks;

replace the current board and senior management team of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, IFSRA;

give the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement the lead role in all investigations into recent transactions by banks and their investors and directors who may have breached both company law and financial regulation, given that IFSRA itself was at the centre of many of these transactions;

reveal the names of the "golden circle" of ten investors in Anglo Irish Bank, and outline what steps the Government and the bank are now taking to recover the associated €300 million in debts on behalf of the taxpayer;

open up the appointment of the next Governor of the Central Bank to open international competition and scrutiny by the Oireachtas;

set a cap of €250,000 on the salaries (including bonuses and share options) of senior managers of financial institutions whose liabilities have been guaranteed by the State and/or in which the State has invested, until the guarantee has expired and the State investment has been repaid;

publish an abridged version of the PricewaterhouseCoopers report into the loan exposures of all the banks whose liabilities have been guaranteed by the State; and

insist that the banks provide a more credible estimate of their likely loan losses over the coming years prior to any form of State recapitalisation.

I wish to share my time with Deputies Coveney, Naughten, McHugh and D'Arcy.

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