Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I wish to thank all of those who contributed to this important and timely debate. Since this motion was tabled there has been a growing realisation that we are fighting for our economic independence. I wish the Government well in confronting the economic and banking problems. However, wishing it well does not mean that I must suspend my critical faculties and pretend, as the Taoiseach and many Ministers do, that we should somehow suspend criticism and speak no ill of Government policy because it is perfect. That is not the reality. The Government should wake up to the fact that it was not pursuing sustainable policies and neither did some storm come from abroad to blow it off course. The Government was pursuing unsustainable, reckless, foolish and wasteful policies. That is the reality.

People on the Government side of the House must realise that unless we face the failures that have grown up over the last seven years, we will neither confront our banking crisis nor our economic one. The economic crisis is at the core of the problem with banking. If there was confidence in Ireland Inc and the way in which the Government is managing the public finances we would not have problems in our banking system and we could withstand the pressures. We hear that people are moving their deposits or are at risk of doing so because they no longer have confidence that the Government has a grip on economic strategy. It is not just the Opposition that feels that. Respectable opinion on all sides, including unions and employers, is of the view that the Government has not grasped the scale of the challenge and has not put in place the sort of comprehensive strategy so that people will understand the crisis is real and must be confronted on a broad basis. That is what is missing because there is no such public conviction. If people at home and abroad do not believe it, then we are damaged and must correct that position.

We cannot, as the Government seems to wish, blame the Opposition for asking probing questions. It is not the Opposition's fault that misdemeanours were ignored, that when evidence was presented its implications were not understood, that Ministers did not read reports presented to them, or that regulators did not act on information in their possession. We are in this mess because probing questions were not asked in the past. People on the Government side of the House may feel uncomfortable when probing questions are being asked, but that is the duty of Opposition and proper regulation. There was a failure to ask those probing questions, however. A culture of Government grew up that was content to circle the wagons. It was a cosy arrangement whereby things were passed on a nod and wink. Reform was not faced up to and when problems arose they were bought out. The culture that grew up in the last seven years fathered the problems we now face. Until this House confronts those failures and begins a reform programme we will have failed to address the banking and economic crises.

Fine Gael's motion contains clear propositions, including a total regulatory clear-out. Who on the Government side can say they have confidence in the way the regulatory system performed? Yet there has been only one token head which was given a golden handshake and moved on. That is not confronting regulatory failure. Let us be honest. We need a clean sweep to bring in a proper quality-mark with an international reputation that will be attached to our regulatory system. That is what we are seeking in this motion. We need proper disclosure so we will know what we are putting our money into. That has not been forthcoming, however, either from the banks or the Government which is in possession of some evaluation of those problems.

We also need a clear-out within the banks themselves. We need a new banking culture with changes in the sort of people who lead banks, including the values to which they aspire. It is just not good enough to exchange Tweedledum for Tweedledee and pretend that things have changed. We need to see that sense of change within the banking system and that has yet to come. Hopefully it will come but if so, it is coming very slowly.

As taxpayers we are now standing in the breach. We have provided guarantees to the sum of over €400 billion. We are proposing to put €7 billion of taxpayers' money into the banks. I would seem that we are proposing to go further and offer an insurance to underpin some of the toxic loans. At this stage we are knee deep into the banks but the only way in which our commitment to the banks will succeed is if people believe that the guarantee offered by the Government is worth the paper it is written on. The Minister must face up to the crisis in the public finances in a broader fashion than he has done to date if he wants to give that signal of confidence at home and abroad. He needs to go beyond where he is.

The notion that the October budget served the country's interests in any way has now been blown out of the water. It was an inept budget whose timing was wrong and it failed to face up to the challenges. The Minister is now trying to retrofit changes to it, but that is not good enough. We need to see a proper reform programme in the public finances, not outsourcing to Mr. McCarthy or the Taxation Commission, but signalling the Government's views as to how we will move forward in areas such as taxation, economic renewal and public spending. We need decisions this year, not some time in 2010.

Many people have spoken of politics needing to be renewed in the face of this crisis, and I agree. We have put up with archaic procedures in this House that are not fit for purpose. We have engaged in sham debate that does not countenance the real challenges we face as a country. We have ceased to be a forum where conflicts of interest are resolved. We have allowed that to slip gradually out of our hands. We have been elected by ordinary people around the country to take responsibility for these decisions. We cannot make those decisions by consensus, however, and anyone who believes we can do so in this crisis is fooling themselves. We need a Government that will act decisively and with authority. We need an Opposition that will ruthlessly hold the Government to account and scrutinise its decisions. We need a Dáil that holds to account monopoly power in Government, in banking and everywhere else.

We need to reform the way the House works if that is to happen. No commitment yet, however, has been made in that regard. The most vital Bills, such as that dealing with the nationalisation of Anglo Irish bank, are passed on guillotine motions with no single section considered in full. How does the Minister for Finance see this fitting in with a modern parliamentary democracy playing a meaningful role in the way decisions are made? Politics needs to be reformed. While we are in this economic crisis together we need to have a working parliament that confronts these problems. Under Deputy Cowen's tenure as Taoiseach, this has not been the case, however. Since the House returned after Christmas, there has been no open, honourable or sensible debate about our economic problems. That is what is damaging politics today.

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