Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Concerning what has arisen in regard to Irish Nationwide, I do not believe it was ever brought to my attention that such a problem existed. A Building Societies Act was passed in 2006, before which discussions took place about how the legislation would be brought forward but there was no indication of this situation. This is one of the problems in regard to the regulatory system we have had. It was received wisdom at the time, in the early part of this decade, that we needed an independent regulatory system that would deal with all such situations. We had the Central Bank and the Financial Services Authority of Ireland was set up. The fact is it did not serve its purpose well, as we now see. The facts are as they are and we must investigate all of that. Serious questions have to be asked in this regard and they will be asked in the course of the inquiry. Reports will be before the House at the end of May and subsequently there will be a commission of investigation.

Concerning whether it was brought to my attention that this sort of problem existed in Irish Nationwide Building Society the answer is that it certainly was not. Regarding the other issue reported today, namely, that reports regarding lending practices that were prepared at the time were sent to the regulator which received them in the years in which they were prepared, my understanding is that is not what the present chief executive officer says. Reports were forwarded recently by the new management to the Financial Regulator, some of which go back to matters that arose in the mid-2000s. The suggestion this morning, as I understood it, was that there were reports at the time which were handed over to the regulator at the time. My understanding is that this is not the case; it is not what the chief executive officer said yesterday. Regardless of that, clearly there were corporate conduct and governance issues that must be addressed and investigated in full and that is the Government's intention.

Regarding the previous question on the Bank of Ireland, I stated already to Deputy Kenny that since the scheme does not involve an enhancement of existing pension provision for chief executive officers no prior consent was required of the Minister in that respect. We are talking about ensuring that from a trustee's point of view there are sufficient funds in place to meet these pensions in the future. That is the point I make.

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