Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

He was probably out playing golf. Where was the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the bankers? Now we must bail them out. This reminds me of an incident a few years ago. I think of the poor old woman from County Mayo who came into me. Her son used to send her a few pounds from England. The bank manager told her to put it in an account but she did not know where the account was. She had £12,000 in that account when they called it an offshore account. Her family from England had to pay almost £40,000 and it nearly killed the woman. What did we do with the bankers? We rewarded them and gave them bigger jobs.

A colleague of mine is a builder and told me he used to send his staff all over the country on holidays, trips and golfing outings. He did not know have enough staff to distribute all the benefits the banks were giving him as long as he was borrowing money to build more and more houses. This country is in a terrible state and we need a new Government and new ideas. We need fairness.

I have always had time for the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Ó Cúiv. I hope he will not be introducing the budget in December. If the Minister does not protect the poor, the weak and the sick, he will let down his people who the generation before them stood for and the republic. What he will be defending is the bankers and the builders and they should all be in prison, rather than a poor person who cannot pay a television licence or the person who might get into a row at night. The bankers and the builders should be in prison and if they are not the people will be outside the Dáil.

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