Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 2:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"noting the complete failure of Government banking policy to support the provision of credit to personal and business banking customers;

suspends the transfer of toxic loans from all banks to NAMA and subsequent recapitalisations until:

— a costing of Fine Gael's alternative 'good bank/bad bank' plan for Anglo Irish Bank is commissioned from independent economic experts at the OECD;

— the detailed costings of other options that have been considered by Anglo Irish Bank and the Government are published;

— the merits of using the same resources for a new investment plan for the Irish economy in the areas of broadband, energy, water infrastructure and re-training are also assessed;

— all these options are assessed by independent experts and their findings are presented to the Oireachtas for debate;

— any further recapitalisation commitments to AIB, Bank of Ireland and EBS includes a watertight agreement on additional lending for small businesses and mortgage applicants; and

— greater tangible financial support is provided to existing mortgage holders from different providers experiencing financial difficulty."

The decisions we are taking today will at one stroke double the national debt. What the Government is asking us to decide today is of truly horrendous proportions. The evidence has not been offered by the Government to sustain the decisions we are being asked to make, which will convert the loans that were recklessly run up by the bankers into sovereign debt. This debt will now be on our generation and future generations. Today's decisions will bring to €40 billion the amount the taxpayer will be asked to put into Anglo Irish Bank, which was run in a truly buccaneering way by Seán FitzPatrick and his colleagues. This is real money; this is mortgaging our futures. This is the final bill for the reckless economic management we have had to put up with for ten years.

Today is not the day for allocating blame among those who caused this. I do not disagree with the Minister's statement that bankers must take enormous responsibility for what was done there, but I also believe he should have the grace to recognise that regulators and the Government parties failed dismally and that they pursued a strategy in which there was an interlocking embrace between the regulator, the banks and the Government which saw no evil, spoke no evil and heard no evil. That was how those who warned of this impending crisis were treated. They were treated with contempt by Ministers. The Minister and his colleagues in government must look to their own stewardship as well as pointing their guns at the banks on this momentous day.

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