Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I welcome the report and its recommendations and will just make a few comments. No issue has had more impact on the citizens of Ireland, Europe and the world than that of financial regulation, control and policy over the past number of years. It is good this House has produced a report and I congratulate the Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on EU Scrutiny on his involvement in its production.

As I have often said, I hope we have learned some lessons. The Chair is aware of how often we have come into the House and spoken about legislation or regulations and hoped it or they would solve our problems. We hope they will, but we have gone through this process many times and that has not happened. The system of regulation, as it has unfolded over the past number of years, is a cop out. It has never worked. There are more regulators walking around this country and Europe than there were in Texas after the American civil war, where there were a lot of them. It also had what were called Reconstructionists and boy do we have them here now. They are ten a penny. What I cannot understand is why we landed where we did. What is the cause of that?

Deputy Connick made a very interesting point concerning access to modern technology and the speed with which actions can take place when transferring assets and selling shares on the world markets. Many Deputies, myself included, have spoken about this in the House in recent years. It was possible to have a financial crisis worldwide in 1929 when there was no technology and when everything was done by hand. There was a previous financial crisis back in 1829 when there was even less technology. We have had many other financial crises in the meantime. There is nothing new in having a financial crisis except that it has become easier to do it. That is our problem.

When it happened here, we introduced a regulatory system. The regulatory system is a step removed from Parliament. Previously, Parliament controlled financial policy with the assistance of the Governor of the Central Bank and the Secretary General of the Department of Finance. Then we introduced the regulator and that was to be the solution to all our problems. I was one of those involved in the DIRT inquiry and this regulatory system emerged from that inquiry. The reason for this was that things had gone wrong in the banking system. 3 o'clock

This debate took place at a conference organised by the European Union in Brussels two years ago. We could not understand at the time how it took so long for people to recognise what was happening around them. It was as plain as the noses on our faces for the past seven or eight years. Deputy Connick said, and I do not blame him for doing so, that Fianna Fáil was not to blame for everything that happened all over Europe. It is just as well it was not. Imagine what circumstances would be like had it been running the whole European scene. Would that not have been fun?

Bearing in mind that I am not an expert, there are basic principles to be considered. Years ago, I was told an expert could be defined as a person who knew when to call in the experts. I must revise my thinking in this regard and the Chair will agree with me because the experts have failed miserably. Everything they said and did was wrong. Their projections were wrong. They stated the fundamentals were sound, but they were wrong in this regard also. They said there was nothing to be afraid of and that the graph was correct, but each and every one of them was wrong.

Of all the Irish commentators, only a small handful, fewer than five, exhorted us to ease up on the grounds that the finances were not in order. They were dismissed as fools and it was said that they did not know what they were talking about. They were regarded as unpatriotic and as running down the economy. It was believed they would cause a run on the euro and such nonsense. Where in God's name did all the so-called, self-appointed experts come from? They appear on our televisions every day and night and can be heard on radio programmes in the morning and middle of the day. They address us in the newspapers. The only one of them who spoke out against what was occurring was the one who now sits in the benches on this side of the House. More credit to him.

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