Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I have told him and I hope the point will be taken on board.

Many years ago we set up tribunals and a decade later they are still ongoing. We are setting up NAMA and I am sure in decades to come it will still be in place. Ministers of Finance will deal with NAMA through its lifetime and during the next decade or so. Inevitably the current Minister will not be in place during the entire period and there will be changes in personnel over the decades. It is clear from this House that Ministers who are hostile to the NAMA Bill and the banks will be dealing with them at a future date and it would be wrong at that stage that a Minister who is hostile to the process was in any way involved in dealing with the valuation process. It would be better to take this Minister and all future Ministers out of this role. It would remove them from the process and would be a far more independent and transparent way of doing it. People would agree with that.

Another matter I ask the Minister to consider in the Bill is the statement that NAMA shall not be regulated by the Central Bank. That should be changed. Too many senior people in recent years were paid out of the public purse while they were asleep at the wheel when they were meant to be dealing with financial matters and regulation. We must ensure this does not happen with NAMA. Most companies which are regulated by the financial regulator take in deposits and pay out loans.

A typical hire purchase company is not currently regulated by the regulator - that might not be well known - because all it does is take in wholesale loans and give out loans for cars, televisions or whatever, but when it does not take deposits from the public it is not regulated by the Financial Regulator. It was set up initially to protect people who put deposits in banks. The regulator does not deal with any institutions which do not take deposits. NAMA will not be taking deposits rather, it will be taking over loans from the banks and the Bill specifically excludes this from financial regulation.

I ask for that matter to be reconsidered because excluding any organisation dealing with €70 billion of bank loans and underlying assets from regulation is not the way forward and it would be important, in the public interest, that there be some independent financial regulation. Loans worth €77 billion are too much responsibility to give to one chief executive or a board of directors with four, five, six, nine or ten members. Apart from debates in this House it is also important that the public is happy to know there is an independent Financial Regulator. I am not referring to the type of regulation we had in the past, but proper regulation which needs to happen in the future and which we have not been accustomed to in recent times.

I agree with proposal of the Minister that every single director of every bank that was in situ on 30 September last year when they got the State guarantee on their deposits must go. Not one can be left in place. It is not personal; I do not know who they are but-----

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