Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

At the very least, it was dubious practice. Somebody must answer to the House for what was allowed to take place at this institution, into which taxpayers' money was poured. A number of weeks ago when the evidence of Anglo Irish Bank cooking the books surfaced I called for the Criminal Assets Bureau to investigate that bank. This evening I call for a CAB investigation of Irish Nationwide Building Society and Mr. Fingleton. While one scandal after another is surfacing from our corrupt banking institutions there is still no clear evidence that the Government is reforming corporate governance. It is corporate governance that is crucial in restoring confidence in our banking system. That can happen only after this mess has been cleared up. It is now evident that banking institutions without radical intervention are in terminal decline. If the Government does not intervene in the form of nationalisation, our banks are finished and a number of SMEs and family homes are finished as well.

The €4.7 billion or possibly €5 billion — it could be €6 billion because the Government obviously does not know — which is being sought will mean nothing if another 300,000 people are laid off by the end of the year, which seems a real prospect at this time. Because of its obsession with cutbacks and our doomed zombie banks, jobs are being lost and thousand of workers are being cut back to working two days per week. The Government has basically done nothing to stop this crisis and it seems to be almost suffering from shock.

Yesterday Sinn Féin launched a jobs retention and creation strategy in order to stop the tsunami of unemployment which is sweeping across this country. We called for a €300 million fund to subsidise jobs in SMEs because our view is that it is better to use public money to keep people at work rather than to keep people at home. The Taoiseach will need to give serious consideration to State intervention in the private sector to save jobs. We also need increased investment in our schools and public transport. A few weeks ago the Government opened up the National Pension Reserve Fund to continue its never-ending bailout of the banks. Why can it not do something useful for once and use the National Pension Reserve Fund to finance critical infrastructure projects. Jobs can be created only through investment not through cutbacks.

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