Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Today is a day that will be remembered for a very long time. It is the day that crystallises more than a decade of mismanagement of our economy and bad government by Fianna Fáil. It is very easy for the Taoiseach to stand here and point across the floor of the House and ask about the Opposition's policies. We are here today because of the Taoiseach's policies. Today is the day that the taxpayer gets the invoice for the bail-out of the banks. There will be a press conference at 4.30 p.m.. The Financial Regulator and the Governor of the Central Bank will make a statement and the Minister for Finance will make a statement in the House at 5 p.m. There has been considerable speculation in the press about what is likely to be in those statements. I reckon it will come somewhere, all told, close to €40,000 million. This will be the price that the taxpayer will have to pay for the bail-out of the banks. This is more than three times the income tax take for a full year. It will be €26,000 for every taxpayer. It would finance the primary education system for 13 years and pay non-contributory pensions for 40 years.

Fianna Fáil rode to power on the back of a promise that it would be payback time. It is payback time now. The problem is, it is the banks who are getting paid and working families who are doing the paying. For example, a family living somewhere in County Kildare would have bought a home at a high price at the height of the property boom. That family is now being asked to pay four times and in four different ways. Today they are being asked to pay a higher mortgage for a home that is now worth less than the mortgage. They are being asked to pay more in taxation over the next, probably, several decades, to finance the transfer of the bad debts from property developers to NAMA. Their pension fund is being raided to pay for the recapitalisation of the banks because the banks had it both ways; they were lending simultaneously over the odds to the property speculators on the one hand who were driving up the house prices and lending the money to the people who had to pay the high house prices in the first place. That same family is probably paying already through pay cuts, through job loss or through loss of business.

Approximately €40,000 million is a great deal of money, not counting the negative equity on homes and not counting the collateral damage caused to the economy. Instead, the Taoiseach comes in here today, has a whack again at the Opposition parties and brings in a motion later this evening about clapping the Government on the back.

It is time the Taoiseach accepted responsibility for what has happened to the banking system and as a consequence to our economy. Will the Taoiseach, today, finally take responsibility for what he has done?

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