Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

He is one of the few commentators - there are approximately two others - who have been consistent about predicting what would happen to our economy. He used simple economics to do so. The rest of the so-called experts were regarded as sophisticated experts, so much so that nobody knew what they were talking about. It is now clear they did not know themselves. What an appalling crime to carry out on the unfortunate people.

What was happening was clear to all who examined the circumstances that pertained. The marriage between the property market and the banking system was the result of an appalling, abysmal decision. The Members on the other side of the House must take responsibility for it, although I do not blame any of them individually. Play-acting and finding somebody else to blame is nonsense. We can have all the regulations we want but nothing will happen to prevent a similar occurrence unless responsibility is taken politically. Nothing else matters.

The problem now is that the politicians are regarded as the people to blame. The public believe the Members of the House are to blame. The Members had nothing to do with it whatsoever; the Government, the Executive, had direct responsibility. Its job is to give direction, or none, as the case may be.

It is sad that we have so little time to talk about these issues. The economic downturn is the greatest problem to have affected this country in the past 50 years. It is likely to remain the greatest problem for another 50 unless some other idiot comes along and makes an even bigger mistake than the one that was made and leads us in the wrong direction.

Over the past eight years, it was clear to the shopkeepers in every corner shop that what was occurring would not last. Of course, most corner shops have been got rid of in the interest of so-called competition, greater efficiency and all that kind of nonsense. Anybody with a modicum of common sense was able to tell the experts where they were going wrong before they went totally wrong.

Most Members on the other side of the House are decent people. I hate to be recriminating all the time in the House against politicians. It was not politicians who were the cause of the problem but the Government, the Executive. It will continue to be regarded as the cause. The repeated failure of the parliamentary system, whereby Ministers refuse time and again to answer questions on matters for which they are accountable to the House, must be borne in mind. To what are Ministers accountable if not this House? The longer this takes place, the weaker the regulatory system becomes and the more vulnerable the economy and people become. I hope somebody somewhere will have the bravery to blow the whistle and blow out of the water the kind of codology that has been evident in this country for the past eight or nine years.

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