Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

It will create wealth and jobs and will be used in a manner which is productive and will grow the economy, through the National Pensions Reserve Fund and can be used effectivity to get this economy up and running again. I want to nail this lie which is now emerging from Fianna Fáil that somehow we are a party which is devoid of policies. It is an insult to the intelligence of anybody in the Labour Party who put their names to a ballot paper because it suggests somehow that we were devoid of any kind of substance politically before we ever decided to enter politics

We have always been a policy-driven party. I invite people to take a look at our record in terms of our involvement in this House down through the years and ages. The record will speak for itself on that matter. When we are in Government the people of this country will see that we will do our best for them and will not be pandering to vested interests.

On the reports, nobody, including me who is on my first mandate, had perfect knowledge on the fateful night of September on the Government's position or the true picture of where the banks stood. It is right and proper that when we are legislating in this House that every single Deputy who is given a mandate in this House has perfect knowledge. It is very clear now - we do not seek to take political advantage from it - that the guarantee which was given on that night was too wide-ranging. It was too big a blanket, in terms of how it covered the individual banks.

Anybody who examines the reports in any objective fashion will see that it was too wide ranging. Anybody who is an ordinary decent citizen of this land will see that the cost of covering Anglo Irish Bank has been €22 billion so far, if I am not mistaken.

The €22 billion spent thus far is money that the next Government will be down in terms of being able to provide services to the ordinary decent citizens of this country. Fianna Fáil Deputies will be lambasting us from the other side of the House for not delivering services because we will be down €22 billion. This is Fianna Fáil's classic game. It is acting as surreptitiously as possible and is spinning the story that winding down the bank in an orderly manner will cost a multiple of €22 billion, even though we do not know that for certain.

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