Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

On the same issue, we were given a very innocuous one-page press release last night from the Department of Finance and the Minister on this subject. I do not know but it seems to me as though the ducks are being put in a row to provide for the full or almost full nationalisation of the banks by this structure. It is being done with almost no discussion provided for in this House. Everybody in the House knows that not only have we the debts of the banks in terms of toxic loans but we have four of five other sorts of areas where the banks are taking heavy losses. If fact, it would seem that the holes in the banks' balance sheets are so large — when mortgage debt, credit card debt, car finance debt and the rising failures of ordinary companies in what people often describe as the real economy and not in the construction and finance area — are included.

We are being told in this notice that responsibility for this——

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