Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

I am simply expressing a confidence that it will happen but I also offer a realistic appraisal that sometimes it may not happen. The intent exists at the top of the banking system. As others have mentioned, people have concerns. Where are the gardaí going in and grabbing people by the scruff of the neck? Why are certain people not being put in handcuffs, as the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, stated? I support and echo the Deputy's comments in this regard. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan, and the Taoiseach should be aware that whatever powers need to be applied should be put in place. I acknowledge it is impossible to make arrests and to charge people without firm evidence and that is probably why it has taken so long. However, as Deputy Rabbitte stated, this is no consolation to people who are on the streets protesting in anger and outrage at the budget cutbacks that must be implemented primarily, but not totally, as a result of the collapse of the banking sector. One cannot strictly equate the two. We must implement a tough budget and then we have NAMA. We have had God knows how many days of debate on NAMA, different arguments have been put forward and we are nearing the end of the process. The measures needed to recapitalise the banking system and get it working properly are separate to the measures needed to eat into our deficit. There are so many elements we would like to see in NAMA but these cannot be in NAMA. In this section, the Minister issuing the guidelines is quite welcome to——

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