Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The question is that these issues could be raised by an Opposition Deputy, issues such as, for example, Irish Nationwide and its management having been, for years, the subject of accusations, some substantiated, of bad business practices, lack of accountability and failing to pass on interest rates. He went on to draw attention to things the Ombudsman had to say in that regard.

If those issues could be raised by an Opposition Deputy on 5 July 2006 when the Bill to enrich Michael Fingleton was introduced by the Government and put through the House in one night, how can the Taoiseach tell us that as Minister for Finance at that time he apparently had no knowledge of any of this, did not know anything of what was going on in Irish Nationwide and had no report from any of the regulatory bodies? The situation now is that we were told yesterday that Irish Nationwide has lost €2.5 billion, had been giving out loans at 120% of the value of properties and so on. There may be more to come but to date the taxpayer has been asked for €2.7 billion to pay for all that folly yet the Taoiseach knew nothing of it.

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