Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

-----particularly in my short time in the House. It is not just a debate about new legislation but about how we can reform our economy and our banking system. It is also about the events of the past and the pivotal area of banking, development, housing and regulation, as well as the kind of society we want to create out of the embers of the catastrophic actions which have landed Ireland - our country, my country - in this situation.

In 1973, the Irish Banks' Standing Committee told the Committee on the Price of Building Land, which produced what is known as the Kenny report:

The member Banks fully support any measures designed to control for the benefit of the community the price of land for housing and other forms of development. They wish to make it quite clear that it is their agreed policy, in conformity with Central Bank guidelines on credit, to refuse generally to grant advances for speculative purposes and to state that this policy is actively pursued whenever, in the particular case of land purchases, an element of speculation is involved or detected.

If that was the guiding spirit of the banks back then, the successors to those heads of Irish banks have disgraced themselves again, to paraphrase W.B. Yeats. The Irish banks have acted disgracefully in recent years and they should be ashamed of themselves. Their practices must never be allowed to be repeated. The recklessness, the facilitation of speculative land purchases, and banking which amounted to nothing more than gambling were at the heart of the events which have led us to discuss the NAMA legislation. That is why my party and I see a need for a cleaning out of these banks' boards and a successful conclusion to the current investigations being undertaken by the Office of Corporate Enforcement. Members should make no mistake about it; people want to see white-collar crime punished.

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