Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I cannot support the Government's NAMA approach to resolving the banking crisis. It is very unfair to taxpayers and the public, who should not have to take responsibility for the reckless behaviour of developers, banks and even the Government. Unfortunately, for many reasons NAMA is not the solution to the banking crisis. First, NAMA remains a secretive tax-funded politically directed work-out process for 1,500 of the most powerful, well-connected politically directed people in the country. Also, NAMA will provide an unnecessary bailout of banks by capping their losses. More importantly, it does not provide any mechanism to get credit flowing again.

NAMA has not received any domestic endorsement. The Small Firms Association says it does not believe the Government's NAMA plan will be enough to get credit flowing to small businesses around Ireland. It also feels that unless we get credit flowing to businesses, jobs will be at risk.

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