Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, is listening because on occasion he does not listen.

The auditors involved in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society have questions to answer. The Financial Regulator was responsible for overseeing the auditing of accounts by these banks. One wonders what was going on. I understood that the regulator was answerable to Government and, in the main, the Minister for Finance of the day. Did the Minister for Finance have his head in the sand given the skulduggery going on within these banking institutions? On the last occasion I spoke on the Bill I made the point that when an official of Anglo Irish Bank, Mr. Willie McAteer, told Mr. Patrick Neary, former Financial Regulator that he would have his bank books in order by the end of the year the Financial Regulator replied saying, "Fair play to you Willie", which is something one might hear in a circus. We all believed Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society were upstanding banks.

I read in a Sunday newspaper a few weeks ago of how close some of the banks were to Members of the Oireachtas and how they were lending money without any security. Surely, this was wrong on behalf of our banking institutions given the number of people now unable to meet their mortgage repayments. Like other Members I, too, have been visited at my clinic by people who have lost their jobs, some of whom come from one-income families, and are unable to meet their mortgage repayments. I made representations to several banks to see if alternative repayment arrangements, such as interest only payments or mortgage freezing for a number of months or a year, could be made to allow these hard pressed people sort themselves out. However, the banks would not listen to me and did not want to deal with me. In some cases, houses were repossessed and people were forced out of their homes while other cases were referred to the High Court, which is unbelievable given what Mr. Fingleton and Mr. FitzPatrick are getting away with it.

We were all told to expect a soft landing. Where is this soft landing we were promised by former Taoiseach, Deputy Ahern and former Minister for Finance and current Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen? There has been no soft landing for many people. Like other Members of the Oireachtas and this House I, too, am aware of the number of small and medium sized businesses closing each week as a result of the skulduggery in the past by people involved in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. These people have walked away scot-free. NAMA will take over their loans and they will retain a wealthy lifestyle. The people really feeling the pinch are those who got nothing from the boom.

This Bill is welcome. However, do the reforms contained therein go far enough? We have not yet learned from what happened. This Bill should be withheld for another time. There is much more we, as a Parliament, need to learn from what happened. We must enact rigorous legislation to prevent this happening again. As stated previously, people in other countries engaged in similar practices were imprisoned. For example, in America when the skulduggery of the banking institutions was discovered those involved were brought out of their offices in handcuffs and imprisoned. This is what people outside this House want to happen here. It is up to us as parliamentarians to ensure we enact water-tight legislation to ensure what happened in the past does not recur. We are moving a little too fast in terms of the introduction of this Central Bank Reform Bill. We should hold off enacting this legislation until we have learned more from what happened.

In recent months I have seen the current Financial Regulator, Mr. Elderfield in operation. I compliment him in terms of some of the decisions he has made. We must have in place a tough regulator who can face down tough decisions such as those that will have to be made if we are to recover. We must enact tough legislation to ensure the financial institutions learn a lesson and are not allowed to conduct business in the manner they have done during recent years. We need tough water-tight regulation and a Financial Regulator who will enforce those regulations. It is up to us as Members of the Oireachtas to ensure we put tough regulation in place. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. There is more we can learn from what happened in the past and major changes to the Bill will need to made on Committee and Report Stages.

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