Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

In his opening statement, the Minister stated:

The country has come a long way since we introduced the State bank guarantee 18 months ago...Back then, our banks were on the brink of financial collapse and our economy had gone into reverse. Revenue had fallen steeply and unemployment had risen sharply. For the first time in a quarter of a century, we were experiencing negative growth.

I know he has a sense of humour and I think he grinned to himself when he penned those lines. Everybody in this House is aware that we are contemplating a truly appalling vista.

As Deputy Ring pointed out, the uncontrolled operation of the banking and property systems has burdened the public, including those with new or old mortgages and business owners who cannot get sufficient credit, with the bill. The people behind these problems claimed to know better than anyone else and that they were worth every penny they cost us. They were wrong about everything. The economy has not been run well since 2002 because, as anybody could have attested, the fundamentals were wrong.

We have encouraged competition in the banking sector. Anybody who moves a deposit from one bank to another can increase significantly the interest earned, whereas he or she would earn nothing by leaving the money in one place. In theory, it would be better for people to move their deposits to a different institution but given the instability of the banks over the past couple of years, they are understandably slow to do so.

Reference is regularly made to people who borrowed unwisely to purchase houses. However, they were told that they had to get onto the bottom rung of the property ladder. Many sincere people who are now caught by negative equity have to pay for the banks' codology on the property market.

Deputy Edward O'Keeffe claimed the world economy is on the up but the problems that affect our economy are deeper than anywhere else in the world because nothing was done to address the issues on time. Let us remember that those paying for it are the citizens of Ireland. The citizens, who are already shouldering their own burden of debt incurred as a result of banking and economic policy, must now carry the burden for the banking system as well, which is a sad day for this Republic.

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