Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I put on the record of the House already this evening the views of Professor Honohan on the original guarantee and Deputy Rabbitte quoted from an article in an academic journal written by Professor Honohan in this regard. All I can say is that the concerns he had expressed in that article did not materialise in respect of the more extended coverage for the taxpayer. In his more recent report he concluded that a wide-ranging guarantee was essential that night, as a wide-ranging guarantee is essential this evening and it gives me no pleasure to say it. Were this guarantee not given this evening our banks would be in a perilous condition. The reality we all have to face is that the funding position of these institutions, which are dependent on international markets for their funding, has been perilous in recent years. We do not have to go back as far as St. Patrick's Day; we can go back to recent weeks and look at the bond spreads on Irish Government debt to understand the stresses our banking system must be under. It is coming to the point where the type of clap-trap that Deputy Burton regularly comes out with in this House has nothing to contribute to the resolution of our nation's problems——

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