Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

When the regulator attended a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs last October, he said: "Speculative lending to construction and property development in Ireland amounts to €39.1 billion, of which €24 billion is supported by additional collateral or alternative sources of cashflow and realisable security." The evidence of the regulator to an Oireachtas committee was that there was €40 billion in loans. That has become €90 billion. The Tánaiste was unable to answer Deputy English yesterday when he asked how this actually appeared. The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, is the wrong way to deal with this.

The Fine Gael view was that the Government should evolve from the existing banks, the clean banks, with performing assets that were not toxic, in which the State could take ordinary shares if necessary and international markets could invest because the banks were clean, had integrity and were credit trustworthy. Over time those banks could manage the toxic assets, the doubtful developer debts in that bank and pay for that. It would not have cost the taxpayer what this proposal will cost. The Minister for Finance said there is a systemic risk in the banking sector. That is now being transferred to the Irish taxpayer. That is not the way to go. The Government has screwed middle income families and rewarded banks.

This budget is a brutal attack on middle income families and on the effort and vigour that they have put in to building our country, our economy, and raising their families. This depletes their confidence. It has been engineered by a Government that has chosen the soft targets and is either unwilling or unable to change the broken ways of the past. These are the reasons this party will oppose this budget when it comes to a vote.

See this speech in context