Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

There is no plan from the Government. The banks have sent their plans, with Government input, to Europe. What is the justification for this €40 billion investment in Anglo Irish Bank, including €8 billion today, a further €10 billion in the future and €18 billion that will go into NAMA? I would have thought the choices here are pretty stark. I do not understand why in respect of the subordinated loans, of risk-takers who invested because they knew the risk existed, the Government has given a cast iron guarantee that it will write whatever cheque is necessary. That cheque whether or not we like it will come out of the pockets and salaries of Irish workers. That is what will happen. This is not mythical money, it is real. Anglo Irish Bank is not a systemically important bank; it does not have a network around the country, it has no ATM machines and it does not lend money.

What is happening now in terms of the allocation made today with a further €10 billion to come is money over the cliff. This money is to cover the losses in Anglo Irish Bank with no return to the Irish taxpayer. The Taoiseach in his current capacity or previously as Minister for Finance had to decide on the equation of using €18 billion to buy out or pay for the bad, reckless management systems of Anglo Irish Bank or to put it to some other use such as the NewERA programme costed and put forward by the Fine Gael Party which would result in the creation of 100,000 jobs in the areas of renewables, broadband, water services and delivery of telecommunications, an opportunity to ensure the provision of real jobs with real money and real careers, but it blithely swept it off the end of the table into the black hole of Anglo Irish Bank which will never result in the return of one single job, salary or career opportunity. That is the choice the Government made.

I accept we need a strong working banking system. When the Minister for Finance telephoned me early on the morning of the announcement of the bank guarantee scheme to ask if I would support it, I agreed I would support it under certain conditions. Obviously, business needs a banking system that works. We have been told on three or four occasions by Government that every decision it took from the guarantee scheme to recapitalisation and NAMA would provide a wall of cash and credit moving through the system. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, publicly stated last Saturday that if Ireland did not pay its bond holders it would be forced out of the euro. I have never before heard such nonsense. Perhaps the Minister got carried away when down around Reginald's Tower in Waterford.

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