Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I will be very direct about it, in so far as she encourages me to be. The banking element of the budget follows the consequences of the speculative economy abroad to the four winds to try to suggest we, as taxpayers, must recover stability in a banking system which was ransacked by people who behaved disgracefully.

Let us be clear about why we are raising all of this. What does it cost per day to run the country? It costs some €55 million. We borrow a significant proportion of that and pay two or three points over the borrowing rate because of Mr. FitzPatrick and his little toxic clique. The Tánaiste knows that toxic clique and it was well placed across the corporate sector and all of the banks.

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