Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I have only five minutes and I am sorry I do not have 25. I will begin where Deputy Ring left off. I am glad the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, is here. I remember when we came in here last September to save the banks. Fine Gael agreed with the Government at the time to save the deposits. The Government has spent the time since congratulating itself on the action it took on that occasion.

The record will show what happened that day. At the end of that debate, when all was said and done, I asked the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, how much bad debt he thought was in the nominated banks. It was the first time he started talking about toxic loans. He said as far as he could see from the information he got from the banks it was €16 billion. That is on the record of the House. Yesterday, it amounted to €90 billion. Who is running the ship?

In the long time I have been here, one was always told never to criticise the governor of the banks or have a critical word for the regulator because, somehow or other, one would be seen as sabotaging the future of the country. I guarantee the Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, that another Minister, in answering a question from, I understand, the Labour Party, asked if we were questioning the ability of the new board set up to fund the national treasury agency. I do not know who is on that board and I could not care less.

I will not believe everything I hear. Not alone will I not believe it, but there are four million people out there who will not believe it either. There are now two senior Ministers in the House. The €16 billion the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, thought was toxic last September now amounts to €90 billion. It is there for all to see.

It is like sending the money to limbo during Holy Week. If it spends long enough there, it will be cleansed and can go somewhere else. When it comes out of limbo, the Minister reckons there will be a good bit left from the €90 million. However, I have news for him. He does not have a clue what is there. The banks do not have a clue; nor does the Financial Regulator or the Government. I guarantee one thing: if we live long enough over the next four or five years, the same families who got hit yesterday - the middle income families of Ireland - will carry the can. They will pay for the fellows who went into the Galway tent. They will pay for the banks and the developers and, ultimately, the Government will sit back and say it was the only thing it could do to save the country.

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