Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Once one decides to pay hope value instead of market value, one destroys the concept of fairness. It implies that taxpayers are being forced to pay more for what they are getting than what they ought to pay. That approach destroys the concept of fairness.

There is plenty of international evidence to show that the state is not good at running asset recovery. When political objectives are involved - one of the Government's considerations is to bring new political objectives such as various social objectives into the asset recovery process - and once one starts down the road of making political deals, sweetheart deals and special concessions for some social purpose, the evidence shows that one undermines and destroys the capacity of an asset recovery system to work.

The Minister's assurances are worth very little when the evidence shows that these systems have not worked where they have been tried elsewhere. They worked in one country, Sweden, which nationalised its banks first and then ran a tight system. However, let us be clear, Ireland is not like Sweden. When it comes to the relationship between property and politics and business, Ireland is not like Sweden. We have to put in place protections, which the Swedish people appear to have in their DNA.

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