Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I thought Deputy Edward O'Keeffe made many interesting points and I certainly would completely agree with a number of those. I trust he will have the sincerity to follow through with voting with the Opposition tonight. It is easy to come into this Chamber and shout one's mouth off. It is another matter to have the courage of one's convictions and to vote accordingly. I look forward to seeing what he does in a half an hour's time.

Today, 30 March 2010, is a day that will be etched on the minds of every citizen of this country because it is the day on which Fianna Fáil and the Green Party saddled each taxpayer with a massive debt in order that rogue developers, rogue builders and rogue bankers can be bailed out. Today, we are all paying the price for bad Government policies and for a situation where weak and often compromised Fianna Fáil Ministers remained in power for far too long.

This is the legacy of that trio, Deputy Bertie Ahern, former Deputy Charlie McCreevy and, to a large extent, Deputy Cowen, all of whom were Ministers who were happy to facilitate the golden circle in enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary people. Rather than having housing policies that viewed decent housing as an essential social good and, therefore, something that needed to be regulated by Government, these Ministers were happy to allow their developer and builder friends to control the market to maintain land at grossly inflated prices, leading to a frenzy in house buying. Prices soared, ever more people were forced and, indeed, encouraged to get in over their heads, and ever more foreign workers were drafted in to keep the building boom going. This inflated demand and, finally and inevitably, the pyramid collapsed. All of this madness was stoked by the financial institutions which threw out the rule book on lending. As the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, stated earlier today, the banks played fast and loose with the economy. They were allowed to do so by the weak and compromised Fianna Fáil Ministers, Ahern, McCreevy and Cowen, the three disciples of light-touch regulation who presided over the destruction of the economy.

It is important that people know who is responsible for the financial disaster in which we find ourselves today. There were significant international factors but there is no doubt the recession is far deeper and will be much longer lasting in Ireland than almost anywhere else in the world, and that is as a result of Fianna Fáil's mismanagement of the economy.

It is also important that people realise that had they voted differently in 2007, we would not be in this devastating position today. Not only did Fianna Fáil facilitate the conditions that led to the property bubble's creation and its subsequent destruction, when the collapse happened, they failed utterly to deal with it properly. Rather than taking action when serious problems began to emerge, the Government exacerbated the difficulties. As Deputy Edward O'Keeffe stated, we all remember Deputy Bertie Ahern's message to those who urged caution. Shamefully and pathetically, Deputy Ahern advised them to commit suicide. I do not know how Deputy Ahern has the neck to be in this House today. He has a great deal to answer for.

While problems were mounting in the banks, it was not until that other faithful date, 29 September 2008, that the Government took action. It took that action, it would seem, solely on the basis of advice from those bankers and those so-called public servants who themselves had contributed so much to the perilous state of the banks and our economy. It seemed, for ideological reasons, the Government was not prepared to countenance nationalisation and, instead, provided a blanket guarantee. Today's appalling vista can be traced back directly to that decision.

Having given this extraordinary blanket guarantee, the Government was in a position to dictate absolute terms to the banks but, yet again, it showed its complete weakness. There should have been a complete clear-out of senior executives and the entire boards in all of the covered institutions. There would have been no difficulty in doing this in light of the scope of the guarantee. Instead of that, however, the Ministers continued to kowtow to these people. The continuing bloated salaries, with increases as recently as last week, are an affront to decent people. Nobody has been sacked, nobody has been penalised and I doubt very much if anyone will end up behind bars. What else would one expect Fianna Fáil to do but to protect its golden circle friends?

Equally, the Government has failed miserably to do what it promised it would on getting credit flowing to small business. This, after all, was one of the main arguments it used for the guarantee. How many tens of thousands of jobs have been lost since then owing to SMEs being squeezed dry by the banks while all the time Ministers stood idly by? It is quite clear a separate national investment bank is needed and far too much precious time has been lost by the Government. Those who have lost their jobs in the meantime have paid a heavy price for that delay. It is hardly surprising, given the Government's central role, that it has refused to investigate adequately the circumstances leading up to the banking crisis. The paying public must await a change in Government to discover what actually happened over recent years.

The details of the proposals as unveiled today show an unprecedented crisis of far greater scale than had been indicated by Government or, indeed, than had been expected.

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