Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I thank my colleague, Deputy O'Donnell, for moving this motion. The two reports on financial stability and the source of the banking crisis are to be welcomed. They are the first review we have had since the banking stability crisis of 2008. It is commendable that the reports are so detailed and informed given it is only four months since the Minister requested they be drawn up without the benefit of the documents needed owing to bank secrecy rules which, when one considers the Minister is now the sole shareholder in Anglo Irish Bank and is a prime shareholder in many of the other banks, should not be the case.

This crisis commenced in 2007 and came to a head in 2008. The basic questions that must be asked are why it has taken the Minister 17 months to commission a report and why he has avoided any review of the bank and Government actions since September 2008. There has been much talk about Iceland. Iceland has completed a full banking inquiry pre and post bank collapse which was published in April this year. We tend to forget - at least the Government does - that it is our duty and responsibility to account to every citizen in this country, who are paying the banks' debts now and will continue to do so for many generations, for how this came about and the reason safeguards to protect the public against bankers' debts have failed.

Both reports contain many illuminating facts that underline the essential conclusion that the bank crisis bears the clear imprint of global influences yet it was in crucial ways home made. It was stated in The Economist in November 2008, two months after the bank crisis, that Ireland's economic difficulties are the result of a self-inflicted fiscal crisis that has been compounded by international factors. One would think listening to the Taoiseach and others during the past couple of days that the opposite was the case. The reports have found that the fiscal policies of the then Minister for Finance, our current Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, bank governance and financial supervision, or rather a lack of it, from the period 1999 onwards left the economy vulnerable to a deep crisis with costly and extended social fallout.

The Minister for Finance does not appear to have realised or to have been aware that it was his job to ensure the national stability of Ireland's financial system following its having joined the euro in 1999. Nobody argues with the critical importance of having a proper financial and banking system. The Minister appears not to have been aware that he had the essential tools to supervise the banking system and the availability of credit, tools which were never used effectively resulting in the runaway train of casino style banking with bankers' principles based on how much they could lend to the highest bidder on the basis of receiving a bonus at the end of the year. What did the Minister do? He added to the out of control credit bill by introducing "extravagant and distorted subsidies for commercial real estate development". By 2005, the Minister for Finance had introduced so many tax exemptions the revenue lost to the Government was larger than the remaining income tax receipts, which is hard to believe. We are now making cuts and increasing taxes to try to recover that revenue.

It is obvious that the out of control growth of the property and construction sector was an essential part of Government policy at the time as was the hands-off regulatory regime for the banks. One banker, Mr. Sean FitzPatrick, stated that over-regulation was stifling the Irish economy - he would say that - and, it appears, the Government believed all that he said. As stated in the Regling and Watson report, the Central Bank is also shown to have failed to sound the alarm to warn how severe were the emerging risks to bank soundness and, ultimately, the living standards of the ordinary citizen.

We were presented with these reports as though they endorse all that the Government has done. I fail to see how anyone can interpret that reading of the reports. Both reports end their review prior to end September 2008. If we are to move forward - I accept we cannot dwell on history - we need to know from where we came. We must know of all the mistakes made. The Icelandic Government has done this. Why are we any different? Why must examine all the practices that have taken place? We have had since September 2008 a rolling reaction and fire brigade response to the banking crisis. I am certain that not all the decisions made at that time were correct and proper. The least we should do is analyse them to ensure where wrong they are improved upon. Anything done right since then is acknowledged as being right. We on this side of the House have certainly acknowledged where prudent measures have been taken. However, this has not been the case all the time.

What we are left with is a legacy that intends to carry on regardless and to transfer the assets of the State from the people of Ireland to private investors in the banks, the greatest transfer since Cromwell landed in this country.

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