Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The tax relief on private hospitals was not abolished. It is like the tax relief which is proposed to be abolished regarding child care facilities. They all have end dates which, under qualifying conditions, can be extended. They carry a very long tail life in the tax system of a further 15 years. The Minister should not try to lecture me about what I know is in the tax code. The Department of Fiance might not know but Revenue Commissioners know what is in the tax code and, according to the answer from the Minister's officials, the measures to which I refer cost us at least €400 million per year. At the height of the Celtic tiger we may have been able to afford that but €400 million is a lot of money now.

Fianna Fáil launched NAMA to a series of refrains, such as "There is no alternative", or "TINA", "The only game in town", or "TOGIT", and, most importantly, we were told it would get credit flowing. The revelations yesterday by Mr. Simon Carswell in The Irish Times that the IMF told the Minister for Finance that NAMA would not lead to a significant increase in lending by the Irish banks and that the IMF was encourage to refrain from making public its estimates of likely losses from the banking crisis indicate that the Government has consciously set out to mislead the House about the consequences of the NAMA project. When the Minister for Finance spoke at the launch of the debate on the NAMA legislation he said, "NAMA will strengthen and improve the funding position of the banks so that they can lend to viable businesses and households". The Taoiseach said the Government's objective in restructuring the banks was to generate more access to credit for Irish business at this crucial time.

At the same time the Minister was claiming the endorsement of the IMF in the House, it is now evident that it told the Minister in private that NAMA would not get credit flowing. He argued over and over again that the consequence of NAMA would be that a wall of money would come and flow again like blood through the veins of small and medium-sized Irish businesses. That is the scenario he painted for us and it has not happened. If the Minister asks any business people walking around on their uppers outside whether they are finding it easy to get credit from the banks they will tell him what the story is. He should ask many people, including low paid public servants who are currently trying to juggle their credit arrangements if they can be facilitated by the banks even though they have a permanent job, even at a reduced rate. He will find the banks will not reach accommodations with people which are reasonable unless they go through a lengthy procedure such as MABS, where they may wait for months to start to be able to address the complexity of their financial situation.

The comments quoted in The Irish Times yesterday were made by a senior IMF official, Mr. Steven Seelig. He has been appointed by the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, to join the board of NAMA in May. A serious element in yesterday's article concerns the fact that a statement is attributed to the senior departmental official in charge of banking in the Minister's Department which warned against making public any official estimate for the losses faced by the banks, saying that the Department had not made this information public. The official is quoted as saying, "We naturally shared with the IMF team our informal views on the range of possibilities but would be uneasy about seeing these formalised". It is a deeply disturbing revelation that both Government and at least some senior public officials in this country appear to hold the Dáil and the voters we represent in some contempt. If taxpayers around the country are to bear the losses of the collapse of the banking bubble and fiasco, the least taxpayers and their representatives deserve to be told is the truth. It is extremely disturbing too to find a publication of information which suggests that the said information was to be kept at all costs from this House and from taxpayers.

NAMA is an €80 billion project that was sold to the public on the premise that once the banks had been relieved of their distressed assets they would be ready to start lending again. The scenario the Minister painted is simply not the case. NAMA was designed as a bailout by Fianna Fáil for its friends in the banks and, particularly, for its friends, the developers. By acting-----

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