Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Yes, the Minister for Finance did indicate in the documentation supplied with the Budget Statement, rather than in the Budget Statement, that there was a proposal to extend the coverage of some categories of debt for five years. With all due respect to the Taoiseach, the way to do that is for the Minister for Finance to come in and explain that to the House,put a legislative measure before the House and provide for it.

We have two problems with this legislation, first, what is being proposed in the Bill is not a provision for five years or for particular types of debt - it is an open-ended provision, stating explicitly that the power is being given to the Minister for Finance to do this by way of order. There is no mention of five years, or of particular categories of debt. The Minister for Finance is asking the House effectively to open the bank guarantee scheme and leave the manner in which it will be exercised to his discretion in future. We have given one blank cheque to the banking system, now the Government is effectively asking the House to provide the system with an undated blank cheque.

Second, what is the rush? As the Taoiseach said, the Minister for Finance signalled something along these lines on 7 April. This is 23 June. Why does the Taoiseach want it done and dusted by 10 p.m. tonight? What is the big hurry? Why can this not be removed? I do not want to have the debate here but I want provision for the House to debate this measure. This is a fairly major departure from the commitment given when the original bank guarantee scheme was introduced. It was brought in for two years and we were told it would end on 29 September 2010 and that it would not be extended beyond that date. That is in the legislation. There may well be a case for changing that for particular categories of debt but it should be done here openly. It should be brought in with an upfront statement of the Government's proposal, the Bill and the conditions attached thereto, debated and decided. The Government is not doing that. What it is doing is underhand. It is slipping in the provision as a Schedule to a Bill, at a point in the Bill where it will not be debated, or will be debated only tangentially, because a guillotine is to be imposed. There is, however, a solution. The Minister could withdraw the Schedule from the Bill and introduce it separately. We can all co-operate with the handling of it and the taking of it. The Taoiseach has not explained why there is such a rush to have it all over and done with by 10 p.m. tonight. At the very least a matter of such seriousness, with so much taxpayers' money riding on it, requires a bit more debate now than being put in as a Schedule to a Bill which is guillotined and put through in one sitting on what is after all a half-day sitting on a Tuesday.

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