John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I share the anger of people who see bankers' greed and stupidity and ask reasonably why we should not allow them to fail and face the same consequences every other citizen faces if he or she messes up his or her finances. Until recently, we had to listen to lectures from incompetent and amoral bankers telling ordinary workers that they did not have a right to modest pay increases and that they, the bankers, knew best about everything. It is more than tempting to borrow from the bankers' own rhetoric and allow the almighty market to take its course by letting the chips fall where they will. The sad reality, however, is that to allow this to happen would hurt the ordinary citizen far too much. Life savings would be lost, businesses would be crippled, our international reputation would be damaged irreparably and unemployment would spiral. We must fix the banking system but in so doing we must also reform it. We must install a new regulatory regime and rebuild trust.

I have always stated that the Green Party's key objective is to protect the taxpayer. This objective was central to our approach to finding a solution to the current crisis and in the ongoing work of elaborating the details of NAMA's working and the accompanying measures. Under the NAMA proposal, the taxpayer is protected from risk in three ways: through ownership of stakes in the banks; through holding back a portion of the premium being paid over current market values; and through a levy which can be imposed on the banks if NAMA winds up with a deficit.

The State, which owns 25% of Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, will end up, through NAMA, owning larger stakes in the banks. Thus, the taxpayer will share in any upside that may arise. We have avoided the disadvantages of total nationalisation which I have already cited.

We are paying 15% over market value for the loans to reflect the fact that there is no real "current market value" for property or property loans. This premium reflects the levels to which valuations can reasonably be expected to recover over the medium term. The premium amounts to €7 billion. We are sharing the risk on this premium with the banks. Of the €7 billion, the banks will only receive €4 billion up front and the balance of €3 billion at the end of the process, and only if NAMA makes a profit. If, on the winding up of NAMA, there is a deficit, the Government may impose a levy on the covered banks to recoup these losses. Even in such extreme circumstances, the taxpayers' interests are covered.

The Green Party did not cause the economic problems we are now encountering.

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