Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

When it comes to the private affairs of banks, we have a culture of total secrecy. However, this culture of absolute secrecy in our banks, where there is no requirement for freedom of information, allowed individuals in banks, particularly in Anglo Irish Bank, to behave like those in The Bonfire of the Vanities. They had complete licence to do whatever they wanted and to maintain right up to the last moment of the last hour before the bank's collapse that everything was really fine and they would pull through. While I agree with the suggestion that the Oireachtas should have more oversight, I am concerned at the suggestion that the bulk of that additional oversight might be in secret meetings. I thought the purpose of the EU college of regulators, etc., to which the Minister referred was to try to get information about a bank that is going bad and where there might be a run on the bank.

The purpose of this legislation is to put mechanisms in place in circumstances where there might be a run on a bank in the future. I do not see how copper-fastening the culture of secrecy that exists in the Department of Finance, the Central Bank of Ireland and the regulator can benefit us. That culture of secrecy was what allowed these banks to make ridiculous decisions on investments and go mad on property speculation, and to claim to the outside world that everything was grand. I fundamentally disagree with the Minister in that regard.

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