Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach paints a picture in which he was closeted in his office, he had no idea whatever about what was occurring, he was entirely at the mercy of what the regulator might or might not have told him and he was not told anything. I find it difficult to understand how, as Minister for Finance over a four-year period, the Taoiseach did not encounter the kind of talk that was going on about Irish Nationwide.

We have ended up in a situation with all of the banking and financial institutions. One could say that it came as a big surprise that one or another institution got caught up in this. However, Irish Nationwide was no big surprise, although the scale was. The black hole has turned out to be much larger than anyone had expected. Everyone is shocked at the scale, but no one who knew what was occurring in financial business around this town in recent years was greatly surprised by Irish Nationwide's involvement. The Taoiseach is trying to tell the House that he never heard anything about it even though the Government was preparing legislation for the demutualisation of Irish Nationwide. Incidentally, the Taoiseach stated that the legislation was for building societies as if every building society was involved in it, but the legislation was tailor-made for and designed to facilitate Irish Nationwide. The Taoiseach mentioned the society's members.

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