Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

If it emerges somebody here had shares in Anglo Irish Bank, does that mean that their vote on the Bill was null and void? I am no lawyer but it looks deeply suspicious. I find it strange that nobody here had any shares in the bank. I can assure the House that none of my colleagues holding the Sinn Féin seats here had shares in it or any other bank. The Government should have told us the true state of this bank before we voted and then we would have been able to represent much more constructively those taxpayers and members of society who we are sent here to represent.

The 120,000 people who marched in this city on Saturday afternoon last did not just march against the pension levy and the wage cut. They marched to impress upon the Government to move away from its carry-on of protecting the speculators, the corrupt bankers and that strata of society, and ignoring people. It is fair to bring all the toxic information regarding the banks before the House. Whatever about the markets, the bankers, the Government policies and the speculators are the people who have destroyed our reputation internationally. It was not Opposition Members who are trying to hold the Government to account, as they are not only entitled, but obliged, to do in this House.

Those people were marching on Saturday afternoon last to change Government policy back to a position where there is some kind of a caring society created, where this is not all faced in the direction of the filthy rich and of that culture of corruption with the elite, and rather to turn it round to deal with those workers on low and middle incomes, for example, to deal with the cervical cancer immunisation programme costing approximately €9 million and which has been abandoned. It looks to society that the only people benefiting here are the bankers and the filthy rich, and as for the rest of society, they can go to heck and do not matter. That is grossly unfair.

The banks lending policy was a joke. The regulator, the Central Bank and the Government should have reined in this but not one of them did. I had a case in my constituency office a few weeks ago of a 54 year old man in very poor health who went to a bank at 50 years of age and was given a 20 year mortgage. He was a tradesman in the construction sector and was expected to work until he was 70 years of age to pay back that loan. He is now about to lose his home and he is distraught. In my book, the lending institution was at least as culpable as the man was foolish for taking out such a huge loan. It is a disgrace that the banks are getting away with that.

There is an absolute necessity to create a credit stream that will run from the banks to small and medium enterprises. Not only do viable businesses depend on that, the jobs therein are also crucial. We know the cost of unemployment to the Exchequer and the business case that can be made for a credit stream without any of the social issues being included, so I hope the Government will recognise that and put something in place.

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