Michael Noonan (Limerick East, Fine Gael)

The Minister is agreeing with me. That was the situation. At every step of the way we have got false information. Reference was made to the valuation and the fact that the haircut was originally to be 25% and then 30%. That was in the business plan for NAMA. The Oireachtas Library & Research Service produced a paper in the same week as the NAMA business plan was published. It had four different ways of valuing assets and each of them pointed to a haircut of at least 40%. If the resources of the Oireachtas Library & Research Service in Leinster House was able to come up with a figure, what were the regulators, the Central Bank and officials in the Department of Finance doing when they came up with those extravagant figures? Even as late as last week the suggested liability that was being leaked to the newspapers was a great deal less than we are faced with tonight. This is an appalling situation.

On that night on 30 September the guarantee to the bond holders should not have been given. It was sufficient to guarantee the depositors. That was the mistake and since then the Government has been chasing itself. It has been tardy in acting as well. The guarantee was made approximately 18 months ago. A similar crisis was evident in the United States. The US Government moved to sort it out and the banks are trading profitably now and supporting a growing economy. A similar problem occurred in the United Kingdom. The result was absolute trauma. It looked for a time as if the UK Government of Mr. Gordon Brown would collapse but it moved quickly to recapitalise the banks in the first couple of months and got them trading again. Now they are underpinning a growing economy.

We have been horsing around with matters for too long. The Government is still doing it. Deputy Bruton made a key point today. In the Opposition we often vote because we have to vote but I will vote with conviction tonight because no one on the Government side has answered the question. No one has made the case for why we have to rescue Anglo Irish Bank when all we are doing is putting money into a black hole. It will never operate as a bank again or lend to anyone again. It will never put up an ATM machine again, not that it had them anyway. It will not open further branches. It is not a bank that is necessary. Why mortgage our children and our grandchildren for the next 15 to 20 years by pouring money into that black hole? It all runs from the original decision. The Minister was misled on the night and action should be taken. Dawn raids by the Garda before a serious Dáil debate is not an answer to an intensive inquiry by the fraud squad into the activities of Anglo Irish Bank.

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