Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

This reply does not answer any of the questions I asked. I suggest the Taoiseach try again with regard to the staff. How many senior staff have loans from this bank? How much are these loans and for what purpose were they to be used? The House is entitled to know this information. If senior managers, who presumably were the people making decisions on a day to day basis about loans and the way in which the bank was being run, had loans extended to them by the same bank in circumstances in which the taxpayers have already committed €4 billion to it, we are entitled to know how many senior managers were involved in this arrangement, what the loans were for and how much they cost.

Second, I wish to know what we are liable for here. The Government does not have money. I was in Crumlin Children's Hospital which has closed a ward and it is the same story in hospitals all over because money cannot be provided to keep essential health services going. Money is not being made available for the building of schools that are needed. There are children in temporary classrooms and children with special needs are having their classes taken away. We are in a set of circumstances where the Government does not have money for anything except, apparently, banks. In that context a sum of €4 billion is a lot of money.

How much more this will cost. We know already that the bank is looking for an additional €3.5 billion on top of the €4 billion and the sum may get bigger. Given the Government decision to put €4 billion into this bank is there a bottom line or will this bank be a bottomless pit for the taxpayer? We should be told.

The decision to put this money into the bank happened on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend and we have not had an opportunity to have any account for it here in the House since then. We need direct answers. I seek factual answers from the Taoiseach but no outline of the alternatives. I am not looking for political roustabout. I want direct answers with regard to the loans made to the senior managers and about the extent to which the public purse, the taxpayer, the people of this country and future taxpayers will be indebted for what went on in this bank.

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