Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

It would work more effectively than the current one and that would not be a big challenge to any of us.

I do not doubt for a moment that economic students of the future will look back with dismay at this period of Irish history, especially when they see that the Government had this report in its possession for five months before the Garda raided this bank to gather evidence before it was all removed or destroyed. In such circumstances anyone out who has self-incriminating evidence and five months to clear it would be very foolish to be caught. However, it is good to see that at long last some movement has occurred, but it is bizarre in the extreme.

The reason the Garda, and all these corporate enforcement officials such as the Financial Regulator, did not act until now is that the prevailing assumption was that one should not touch the banks. There was an assumption that these were the gods of the Celtic tiger and they cannot be seized upon and must be allowed do whatever they want. This really was amazing because everybody on this side of the House has stated for some considerable time that Anglo Irish Bank was a toxic bank. Even before we knew the detail of the toxic loans, and some of the surrounding activities, we were saying that a receiver should have been sent in to the bank.

Some on this side of the House also stated that it may take a period of five years to address the situation but the Government did not listen. The Government knew more about this than we did. The Government had information about the toxic loans, and yet sat on its hands. I find that bizarre in the extreme.

The public is punch drunk with this entire episode. An article last Sunday in The Sunday Tribune reported that the then Regulator, the person in charge of ensuring that the banks were honest and acted with proper probity, told the bank, when advise it would be engaging ins some creative accounting practices, to continue with its operations. That is bizarre in the extreme.

What happened to the Financial Regulator? Rather than being called in and carpeted, rather than be told that he was a disgrace and have him sacked he was sent off with a golden handshake of €630,000 and given an annual pension of €142,000. Many people are asking me was that golden handshake a reward to keep him quiet and not to disclose other pieces of information in his possession, and to keep him from putting them into the public domain. I do not know but people are well justified in asking those questions. It looks odd, to say the least.

There have been other details. There is the €450 million that was given out to the six customers, the €6 billion transfers between Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent, which was very dubious activity and the €180 million in loans to directors. The report, I understand, stated that the bank has very large exposures, an understatement if ever there was one. That information should have been given to those of us on this side of House before we voted on the nationalisation of the bank last January.

With regard to the nationalisation of the bank, is the Government aware of any Members of this House, including Ministers, who had shares in Anglo Irish Bank and who did not declare them before voting on the nationalisation Bill in January and if so, does that represent a conflict of interest?

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