Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The prospect of over-paying for the transfer of impaired loans from the banks, including Anglo Irish Bank, is appalling for most taxpayers. One can dress it up in highfaluting phrases, such as long-term economic value, and wrap the consent of the European Commission around it to give a legitimate veneer, but one cannot hide the true meaning of what is proposed, that is, to force the taxpayer to pay greater than the odds for properties that could never command those prices on the market.

How can the Government judge long term value? It recruited Jones Lang LaSalle to value impaired loans as part of the PricewaterhouseCoopers process. Yesterday, the bank chairman, Mr. O'Connor, referred to the PwC process on which the Government has been briefed several times since last summer. At that stage Fianna Fáil, or The Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan, were fully aware of what was taking place in Anglo Irish Bank. They were aware that it was a bank, like the Titanic, heading towards an iceberg and disaster. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance were moving might and main to keep the Titanic away from the iceberg but they could not so they decided to bring the other ships and allow them to hit the iceberg as well, a case of one in, all in; in for a penny, in for a pound.

The Government paid millions to PwC for a report that is not worth the paper it is printed on. Anglo Irish Bank paid huge fees to Ernst and Young for an audit that did not spot Mr. FitzPatrick's dodgy loan exchanges. Jones La Salle valuations were useless and did not reflect the true state of the market. We saw the deterioration that happened since last September and these multiple reports. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan first of all said that Anglo Irish Bank would not cost the Irish taxpayer a penny, which he has repeated from time to time. Deputy Lenihan is a qualified barrister and a person of some intellectual eminence who has been to Cambridge so I presume that is just political cant.

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