Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

That is a different point. When Mr. Alastair Darling initially dealt with this issue the coupon was 12%. It turned out to be unsupportable with the objective of stabilising the banks and it was too punitive. Taxpayers find that having devoted a share of national wealth to the pensions of the future, that pension money is now going toward the banks. Many people have great difficulty in understanding that, although we must say that without a functioning banking system we cannot have a functioning recovering economy. In that sense it seems if the Minister is reassuring us about capital adequacy ratios, that a coupon of 8% ought to be capable of being borne.

I was greatly amused at the weekend by the huff into which Fianna Fáil fell about the preposterous notion that anyone should associate that party with developers and such people. Whoever was responsible, there is manifestly no basis for such a claim.

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