Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

NAMA is not just a defining moment for our nation, it is also a defining moment for the Green Party. If its members decide to vote for this legislation they are sending out a message that they too are part of the elite, the establishment and the powerful. Are the interests of bank investors and developers really more important than the interests of ordinary people from whom Green Party members have become removed? We are constantly being told by the Government that there is no alternative to NAMA? The same line is repeated in certain quarters of the media and by the hired guns. This is absolutely untrue. What is true is that the Government has refused to consider any alternative.

Let us not forget the origins of NAMA. I would like the Minister to clarify a point on which I am unclear. If this was the biggest financial crisis to have hit the country one would have thought that the Government would either have called in the parties to advise them of the scale of the problem we had-----

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