Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Does the Minister not agree that the best way to break up an incestuous relationship is to get rid of some of the parties to the relationship? Does the Minister accept that he has shown himself to be extraordinarily slow in bringing about change in the bank boards and that such change is a critical measure in terms of showing international bond holders that we are serious about bank reform?

The Minister introduced the legislation guaranteeing the financial institutions at the end of September. Since then there has been much talk from both the Minister and the Taoiseach about due diligence. Some of us have even begun to believe it is a person. Where was the due diligence when it came to discovering that this chief executive officer and others had accumulated extraordinary entitlements at a time when they were coming cap in hand to the Minister, on behalf of the taxpayer, to bail out their institutions? Why did "due diligence" not step into the frame, from wherever she was, to point out that this guarantee arrangement is subject to an oversight, which is a common arrangement in business deals? Did the Minister have the benefit of legal advisers when he offered the guarantee and left himself absolutely naked in regard to the rights — very expensive rights from a taxpayer's point of view — that were accumulated by the chief executive officers and board members not only of the Irish Nationwide Building Society but also of Anglo Irish Bank?

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