Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I have heard the Minister say time and again that the collapse of Lehman Brothers is the reason we have to protect everyone. He has learned the wrong lesson. The problem with Lehman Brothers was that its collapse spread panic because there was no framework for managing what it was doing. It was not the case that it was letting investors and bondholders suffer losses; that was not what was wrong. However, the Minister seems to believe that if we let any bondholder in our banks compulsorily lose money the world will fall in on top of us and we will not be able to borrow any more. Let us be blunt; these debts were not debts of the Irish people.

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