Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I want to make it clear to Deputy Gilmore once again that this is not a question of doing anything other than trying to secure the future of the economy. The whole purpose and motivation of Government involvement and Government policy in this matter is to try to ensure that we maintain financial stability in this country, which is absolutely essential for the purposes of dealing with the issues that are often discussed in this House, namely, the need to create jobs, maintain investment and ensure businesses have access to credit.

The continuing effort to try to portray this in the pejorative way in which it has been outlined by Deputy Gilmore does a grave injustice both to the gravity of the situation we need to deal with and the motivation of everyone in this House. Whatever our differences, we must do whatever we can to try to ensure that the Irish economy has a solid future going forward. The difficulties of our financial system and banking system have been no different from the difficulties that have arisen in respect of other financial systems and financial institutions in other countries, where governments have had to intervene, as this Government has had to intervene for the purposes of trying to bring forward an economic programme and economic policy that will ensure a future for this country. That is the truth of it. Any suggestions to the contrary by anyone in this House does an injustice to that situation. I am simply saying-----

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