Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

What is disappointing about this debate is that people are not teasing out where we are going to go.

There has been much comment in recent months in regard to the bank guarantee scheme and the reason it was introduced. I can assure Members of this House, as a person who knows no bankers, not even my own bank manager, that the decision was a no-brainer. The Government had no choice but to secure the banking system. Had it not done so every household in the country would have been affected, directly or indirectly. Anybody who seriously believes that the banking system should not have been saved does not know anything about the complexity of modern financial transactions. Financial transactions in every financial institution are linked in ways people do not realise.

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