Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Shareholders of any bank are not entitled to find out personal information about customers, which Deputy Burton knows perfectly well. I agree that the request for a tabular breakdown is very sensible and I would like to put on the record as much as I can in that regard.

The Central Bank has indicated it is only possible to roughly estimate the value of deposits covered by this scheme in this legislation, where the compensation limit is €100,000. Its estimate is based on the total value of deposits surveyed for the 11 institutions which were potentially eligible for the Government guarantee, which was approximately €170 billion. The Central Bank indicates that these form the vast majority of the deposits covered by the deposit guarantee scheme and estimates that approximately 40%, or €70 billion, of these deposits would be covered by the deposit guarantee scheme. On top of this we can add the €12.4 billion of deposits held in credit unions, thus giving an overall figure of approximately €82 billion covered by the deposit guarantee scheme.

The deposit guarantee scheme does not cope with a systemic financial crisis. In such a scenario, a Government intervention to restore confidence might be necessary, as we have seen both here and in other countries over the past year. Deposit guarantee schemes are more likely to be used in once-off positions and can be seen as just one part of the financial safety net. However, they can be helpful in protecting an otherwise solvent institution from failure.

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