Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Minister's officials obviously knew differently and the Minister decided to keep this House and the taxpayers of Ireland in the dark because, as usual, Fianna Fáil thinks the rest of us are mushrooms that benefit from being kept in the dark. That is what the Minister wants to do - to treat the taxpayers of Ireland like mushrooms. If they are kept in the dark, they will be happy and leave the Government alone.

By acting with NAMA in such a partisan way, playing politics, the Minister has damaged the economy and the hope of recovery of live and viable indigenous businesses, of the kind Dr. Barrett spoke about. The Minister has damaged their prospects immeasurably. These are matters that ought to be made the subject of an inquiry, along with statements by the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach in the House.

I note that the terms of reference of the Minister's inquiry specifically rule out material such as the IMF discussions and advice in respect of NAMA because he stopped the inquiry's remit from the beginning of September 2008. Fianna Fáil is so clever. Even when we have a so-called banking inquiry, it will not be empowered to examine these extraordinary revelations. They are truly extraordinary------

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