Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Labour Party for sharing time with me. In the brief time available to me I must confine my comments to the crucial part of the Bill, the section enabling the Minister to extend the bank guarantee scheme on a whim, which makes the State liable for almost all of the toxic debts in our financial institutions. I wonder why the Minister has decided to delegate this power to himself. Why can we not have a proper debate on a scheme which could end up literally bankrupting the State? I would not give these powers to a Minister for Finance from my own party much less to a Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance irrespective of who the Minister was - in fact, I certainly would not give it to a Fianna Fáil Minister.

What the Minister proposes to do disenfranchises this House. It takes away an opportunity for us to have a proper debate and gives him dangerously sweeping powers. The Minister is advised by an Attorney General who might be of the view that this legislation is within the principles laid down in Cityview Press v. AnCO and is not repugnant to the Constitution. This is, of course, the same Attorney General who thinks we cannot impose a pay cut on the Judiciary despite the view of numerous legal commentators who think that we can. That is a bluff. The intent is to ensure that a judge is not penalised because of a decision that he or she made and is nothing to do with what is intended here, which is to protect the public finances.

The extension of the guarantee means extending the public's liability for toxic debts created by the fat cats and the speculator friends of the Fianna Fáil Party in particular. We will end up guaranteeing more debts and cementing our liability to pre-existing debts. That is completely unacceptable as people outside the House are saying. Whatever about the reasons given at the time, the banking guarantee scheme has failed to provide any stability and the only thing it has done is expose people to debts they did not create which could result in the State's being bankrupt. The Minister does not have a mandate to bankrupt the State. He does not have the right to use public money in any way he deems fit and he does not have the right to decide what is in the public interest without proper debate in this House.

Over the past eight years his Government thought it was in the public interest to allow the property bubble to get out of control and to ignore the warnings that we were too reliant on the construction industry for employment and for failing to ensure adequate tax revenue. His Government knows nothing about the public interest. Why does this sweeping power need to be passed on to the Minister when there is a sunlight clause in the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Act which allows for him to extend the scheme upon a resolution of the House? The very least that would require would be that the Minister would introduce a resolution in the House that we would debate and on which we would vote.

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