Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The guiding principles the Government has always adopted in all interventions, from the State guarantee onwards, have been to provide a financial system that will service industry, business and households and that will safeguard the lifeblood of the economy. It is unfortunate that Deputy Kenny continues to portray the motivation of the Government as being anything than that.

The Deputy then goes on to misrepresent the report issued by the Governor of the Central Bank on the necessity for the guarantee, a guarantee that was supported by his party at the time. Our banking system was on the——

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