James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I will need half the day to deal with this issue.

This Bill can be likened to surgery without having a scan or X-ray to pinpoint the affected area. Reforming the financial regulatory area without having an inquiry into the collapse of the Irish financial system, such as took place into the Icelandic banking fiasco, is an exercise in groping around in the dark. This is what the Government is doing.

Yesterday the Minister for Finance was honest when he said, wittingly or otherwise, concerning the Government's strategy to resolve our banking crisis, "Let us make no mistake that what we are discussing now is the fallout of the financial sector for which the Government must take the major responsibility". I am glad he said that because there are very many angry people criticising the manner in which this Government dragged us into the mess in which we find ourselves today.

To state the obvious, an inquiry would not be in the Government's interest, no matter how it spins this. It is most evident that Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have blocked an investigation for their own ends. I am very surprised that the Green Party is backing Fianna Fáil 110% on this. A constituent inquiry would have set the foundations for reform but the cost would have been too high for the Government, especially for the Green Party. Every member of that party now has a position. They have looked after their own interests rather than those of the country although at this stage it is hard to see what they have to lose.

The electorate is waiting in the long grass for both Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The Government's cover has been well and truly blown in every area. There was the crazy cronyism that went on in the Galway tent. There are the entire areas of health, education and farming. The Government created the jobs crisis that now exists in the country, where almost 440,000 people are out of work. In my constituency, Longford-Westmeath, 15,000 people are unemployed: more than 5,000 in County Longford and 10,000 in County Westmeath. I am pleased my constituency colleague, Deputy Peter Kelly is present to listen to this.

Every man, woman and child in the country knows what went on and what still goes on. They know it but are powerless to prevent the dissemination of their lives and lifestyles that was necessitated by the greed of those who were and still are milking the system. On several occasions there have been votes in this House but we all know that politics is a numbers game. The Fianna Fáil troops walked into the lobbies along with the Green Party to support NAMA while Fine Gael rejected it and all the depredation it has brought to the country.

I am interested in, and almost amused by, the Minister's contention that NAMA is winning the respect of the public. He only has to come down to the midlands, to Longford-Westmeath, where NAMA is like a noose around the neck of people but it is also tightening, every day, on the Government. Perhaps the Minister will give me a detailed breakdown of the reasons for not having a referendum on NAMA. Was it because the Government feared the country would rise up and refuse to bail out its cronies? If this were happening in France or any other country there would be a revolution. I still predict a revolution in Ireland because I witness people coming to my office and my clinics every weekend who are extremely angry because of the way in which the Government is behaving.

There is no NAMA for the young people who purchased houses four or five years ago at prices from €250,000 to €400,000. When they were getting their mortgages the same banks told them to take out a loan for a holiday or a cheap whatever. The banks put a huge noose around the necks of those young people whose children will not see these loans repaid.

NAMA is increasing the divide between the haves and the have-nots. An inequality of provision sees social welfare benefits being cut across the board while taxpayers' money, to the tune of €8.3 billion, is being ploughed into Anglo Irish Bank, with a possible €10 billion yet to be provided by the taxpayer. This is a shameful disgrace as our young people head in their droves out of the country. There are predictions that over 60,000 well educated young people from Ireland will be forced to emigrate during 2010.

This bank has recorded the largest corporate loss in the history of the State. There is a shocking deficit of €12.7 billion and I am delighted with the European Commission's decision to reject the Government's business plan for the bank. It has been revealed that the EU knew about the €8.3 billion cash injection for Anglo Irish Bank long before we in the Dáil, which makes a sham of any debate in this House.

The Government has been driven by cronyism throughout this recessionary period, with the elite in the country immune to the cuts. Those in extreme poverty are being refused their entitlements for the most tenuous reasons. It is heart-breaking to see people come to my constituency clinic having lost their jobs or self-employed people waiting over six months to get some form of social welfare. Some of these people are at their wits' end, and I know of people who have gone to mental institutions because they were not able to cope. People are threatening suicide because of this Government's behaviour.

The Government is continuing without accountability and ignoring the interests of consumers in this Bill. It is a disgrace that the Government is proposing to abolish the statutory position of the consumer director and disband the consultative panel. Lest the Minister forget, that panel was set up to protect the interests of the consumers and customers, and it seems that under the current Government, anything protecting the consumer, the taxpayer, the unemployed and the disabled is to be done away with. It is cowardly behaviour. Conveniently, anything protecting the elite is to be encouraged under this Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition.

The Minister claimed yesterday that the citizens of this country have demonstrated their gritty determination to get this economy back on the road to growth. He failed to put the emphasis on the word "demonstrated". Has he forgotten the industrial unrest and demonstrations that should leave him in no doubt how the lower and middle income earners of this country feel? They are extremely angry and hardly a day or week goes by without people protesting outside the gates of the Oireachtas because of the disgraceful actions of the Government. Those actions were not promised in the programme for Government.

The Minister has said the Irish people have shown the world that the enterprising spirit which brought us the boom is alive and well and will lead us back to recovery but who will benefit from the recovery. Every family in this country is in hock to the Exchequer for generations to come. It is not just those who are alive today who will suffer but generations not yet born will bear the brunt of the reckless behaviour of the Government. Was the Minister referring to a recovery for those who have been forced to cut down from three expensive cars to two or reduce their holidays by half?

What have the people got for their trouble? They have received a half-hearted apology from the Minister and his Government but who has accepted blame? Has one banker been brought to justice? Is one dodgy banker who led us into the mess we are in today behind bars? If there is nobody behind bars, it is the fault of the Government and the system we have in this country. Young people - and those not so young - in every village, townland and county are saying that some of the dodgy bankers should be in prison because of their reckless behaviour. Fine Gael, the party of law and order, will ensure that the culprits who wrecked this economy will be brought to justice.

Are the banks now operating in a manner that would lead one to believe that they are interested in reform? Are they conscious of the sacrifices the citizens of this country have been forced to make to prop them up? It will be business as usual for the banking sector, and €1.5 million for a pension fund is small change to these people. Living in their rarefied atmosphere they cannot conceive the heartbreak and despair being experienced by the small and middle income earners who have lost their jobs, or if in employment, taken a massive reduction in wages because of the various taxes introduced by the Government. That sort of grief does not make its way into the consciousness of those who lived off the wealth of the Celtic tiger and see no reason to change their lifestyles. We saw some of these people pictured on the front of newspapers returning from exotic holidays recently.

The only achievement of Irish bankers was extremely dubious. They propped up the property bubble and in doing so destroyed the country. They were not alone, as the Government was with them putting a legislative stamp of approval to their worst excesses.

I can see the result of this in my constituency of Longford-Westmeath as vacant houses in the midlands will be among the first to be demolished by the NAMA wrecking ball. A decision will be made over the next few months as to how much land and housing taken from developers will be built or completed. There are 19 ghost estates in County Longford and 18 in County Westmeath, a particularly high ratio of estates per head of population. These estates are proof of the excesses of the Celtic tiger years, the out-of-control bankers and the greed of some developers.

A significant question hangs over the issue of planning permissions. Unlike my colleague, Deputy Peter Kelly, I do not believe the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2009 will wave a magic wand over the area of rogue developers. Services must be developed to turn ghost estates which are not bulldozed into sought-after residential units; we must convert anything left unfinished into a proper unit where parents, children and families can live in comfort with infrastructure such as sporting facilities, public lighting, footpaths, etc., on hand. The needs of those awaiting social housing must be paramount and local authorities and the appropriate Minister must act to clear waiting lists.

There is a significant number of people in the country waiting on houses. There is a go-slow in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the Green Party Minister, Deputy Gormley, especially in the purchasing of houses for people who have no homes of their own. As it stands the horrible spectre that hangs over the rural landscape in Longford and Westmeath, and throughout the country, is that of estates left to rot over years with no initiative taken to remove them and restore the land's rural heritage.

The fall-out from the banks has also left rural Ireland without another essential service. The decision of many banks to close local branches and centralise is a retrograde step. We have lost bank branches in my own county of Longford, and Deputy Kelly knows of the protests which took place in Lanesborough, Edgeworthstown and other parts of the county as a result.

People have had services taken from them but they need local services. On-line banking does not fill the void as people need to lodge and withdraw money, for example. Elderly people may not be up to speed with Internet banking and such people cannot afford to keep money in their houses under the bed in the current climate. They need a local banking service.

It does nothing for our elderly to close bank branches in rural areas, thus forcing them into the larger towns. The lack of a proper local transport service kicks in when services are not available in local towns and this has not happened across the midlands. How to access the nearest large centre constitutes a huge problem for those in remote rural areas. I am sure the Ceann Comhairle is aware of the position of those who live in isolated areas, as are many Members who represent rural constituencies. These problems will not engage the mind of the bank executive but are the inheritance of a system that is rotten to its core.

While listening to the Minister speaking yesterday, I was struck forcibly by the self-congratulating attitude and the spin that has been at the core of the current economic problems and still remains so. I detected neither doubt nor a sense of shame about the problems that now haunt those who have lost their jobs, those who have lost medical benefits or other entitlements and most importantly, those who have lost hope. The Government is providing no hope to the people. Instead, Members have heard a litany on how great are the Minister and the Government. The only people who will tell the Government how great it is are the electorate when they get their chance in the not too distant future. Members are being told the Government has saved the country from the jaws of economic ruin. It appears that only Fianna Fáil and the Green Party could do it. The Government should make no mistake but that the people are angry and will teach it a lesson at election time. Members should not mind the minor detail that the Government caused the problem and now expects them to accept that the merger of the independent Financial Regulator's office with the Central Bank is the answer to our problems. On what grounds should Members accept this? They cannot and will not. While promises by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party come easily, results do not.

In December 2008, a bank executive stated that the banking sector is on life support. The taxpayers of this country, particularly those who can least afford to, are now manning the intensive care unit. The manner in which the Government has behaved towards the citizens is shameful because all our citizens are human beings. While the Constitution states that this nation cherishes every citizen equally, Fianna Fáil cherished the rich at the Galway tent over a great number of years. Shame on them and the sooner the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, goes to the country the better for this nation, because Members should make no mistake but that Ireland is the laughing stock of Europe.

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