Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

He is the past, and certainly so as far as this is concerned because he was the Minister for Finance. He brought in bankers to draft legislation on banking, to write their own rules. This is what that committee was about. He gave them a brief. He now says that light touch regulation was something in the past, but he gave them a brief to prepare light touch regulation. The problem is that the Taoiseach says he saw and heard nothing, and he will admit nothing. He has learned nothing and changed nothing.

In another story we heard about in the past couple of days, which was highlighted on RTE's "News at One" on Monday, Irish Nationwide hired forensic accountants to unearth and pursue the malpractices that were occurring in the building society. The forensic accountants hired were from the very firm that acted as auditors to Anglo Irish Bank, the people who could not see the loans that Seán FitzPatrick was transferring between Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. Will the Taoiseach say what will happen when they come to forensically examine the loans that were transferred by Seán FitzPatrick from Anglo Irish Bank to Irish Nationwide and the role the auditors played in that process? There is a clear conflict of interest.

Was the appointment of these people approved? The difficulty is that, because of the Taoiseach's approach where he heard and saw nothing and has not learned anything, nothing has changed and we are back to the "same old same old" where the people on the inside track and in the golden circle are still being reappointed to examine themselves.

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