Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

That is the frightening thing the public is concerned about. The public relies on people to make judgment calls and this is what we have been talking about for the past number of years. A judgment call needed to be made three years ago but was not made. The problem has been allowed to continue to such an extent that this country is at the mercy of the markets. That is the sad part of it. In order to recover, we are expected to pay interest rates of over 6.5% at the same time as a large proportion of our population is suffering from negative equity and mortgage arrears. In some cases one or both of the partners in the household are unemployed. If they are both employed, they have childminding costs that amount to €2,000 a month in some cases. That sum has dropped but it amounts to a mortgage in itself. We also have the potential threat of water charges, property taxes and a series of other charges. What is emerging is an accountant's view of how to balance the books but what is required is a judgment call to determine the extent to which the books can be balanced and society can withstand the negative impact. That is of great importance.

Let us consider some of what has come and gone in recent times. We know the figure we are talking about is approximately €50 billion. We presume this is correct. It has taken two years to arrive at this figure. In most other countries, such as Iceland and the United States, forensic auditors enter institutions and produce an initial report within four or five weeks, wrapping up within six months. They know where everything has gone wrong, they point to the guilty and action is taken. It is no solace to any of us to see people penalised for what was done wrong but things were done wrong. Unfortunately, the people of this country must pay for it. What would irritate me most of all would be to discover that someone had a swanky bank account in a far-off place. That would worry me and it would worry the people of this country. For the sake of society, I sincerely hope that it does not happen. I would like to know who are the bondholders to whom we owe so much at present.

Like Deputy Costello, I have been a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs for some time. One of the things to which we have become alert is that within the European Community there are some countries that are not as committed as others. Some countries would love to see part of the eurozone break up. If any one country within the eurozone is put under such pressure to the extent that they are incapable of repaying their debts, or appear to be incapable, which is a different matter, then not only would there be problems for the country in question, but also for the entire European project. That would have serious consequences.

Two years ago the Government sought and had the power to put through the bank guarantee scheme. I was not happy about it at that time. I pointed out that there were several pivotal people who should have been asked to give information and to account for themselves before any such guarantee was given. I also pointed out that the pivotal people concerned were obviously acting according to Government policy so responsibility had to be taken. That is no offence to the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, sitting opposite. He was not responsible for it. As a matter of fact he was only a lad at the time. He was not in the House when most of that was happening. However, there can be no escaping that someone knew what was going on and that it was decided somewhere in the system.

Now the problem is that everyone says all the politicians were to blame. I congratulate the Government parties. They got away with that one because now the odium has been passed on to all of us. An appalling thing has been done. Not only that but everyone is being blamed to the same extent as those who were directly responsible. It may be good and it may sound great that a man approached the Houses of Parliament a week ago with a concrete mixer. He was hailed as a hero because he crashed into the gates of the Houses of Parliament. It is obvious that he did not know that decisions are not made in Parliament. They are made by the Executive in Government Buildings. Someone should have told him the difference between Parliament and the Executive. I cannot understand how any adult can fail to grasp that distinction. I do not suggest he should have done that, but he could have walked up the street and protested at the bank to which it is alleged he owes a substantial amount of money. That is not what happened. What happened is that the location of the people's representatives - the Houses of Parliament - was attacked. That is a dangerous thing. If matters continue in that direction, this country will have much more serious problems within the next couple of years.

We now need to know who the famous bondholders are, both the primary and the secondary ones. I am sick of the jargon about subordinate bondholders and primary and first bondholders. We all know what it means - the first charge and the second charge, the high risk and the low risk and the short risk. We also know that one has options when one invests. One can take a high risk, high return option or one can take a low risk, low return option. Those options are open to investors everywhere, but for some unknown reason it is now expected that we, the people of this country - every man woman and child - will pay back for the high risk, high return option because it did not come off.

Many of my constituents go to the races on a regular basis. I must say this for them, they never come home from the races having lost their shirts and blame anyone else. They are philosophical about it. They know that when they place their money on the long odds that it could come up; it does occasionally and then we hear all about it. However, they also know that for every time it comes up, there are an awful lot of other times where it does not.

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