Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Business people who are pushed to the pin of their collar to keep going or whose businesses have gone under because banks will not lend them the credit they need must wonder what the developers have at their disposal that they do not, given that the Government is prepared to take their property off their hands and relieve them of their bad debts.

Not only will the Government buy back the property these people speculated on in this country but it also intends to buy back the property on which they speculated abroad, including the shopping centres in Birmingham, the apartment blocks in Bulgaria, the hotels in Dubai and the retirement villages in Florida. We are told in the questions and answers document circulated yesterday that these properties will be bought back by the Government with Government bonds at taxpayers' expense.

Of the €80 billion to €90 billion the Government estimates these loans equate to on the books of the banks, how much relates to property abroad? Of the property abroad, can the Taoiseach tell us how much of it is property that was bought by Irish developers abroad and how much was bought by property developers abroad who borrowed the money from Irish banks? It is bad enough that we are buying up all these half finished developments in this country and the fields around towns and villages that will not be developed for many years but which may have been rezoned by the owners' friends on local councils. Can the Taoiseach explain to the Irish people why the Government is buying up property abroad which was speculated upon by property developers here and abroad? How much of the €80 billion to €90 billion is represented by property abroad?

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