Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am sick and tired of this continuous effort by Deputies to claim that any decision we took was based on something other than what we were advised and based on something other than the national interest. This country was facing into a very serious situation, and I defend what we did on that occasion, because we had to ensure that markets understood that the Government was prepared to back our banking system. Other governments have had to do it since then. We did it then and we are now in the process of restructuring our banks through the NAMA vehicle, which will take those risky assets off the balance sheets so that we can protect and create jobs. How many jobs would have been protected and created had we allowed our banking system to implode?

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