James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

Reckless lending by banks and reckless spending by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government have made for a sorry state of affairs. Unfortunately, it is not the Cabinet which is sorry, rather it is the unemployed, the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the young.

Last week the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, stated that reckless lending was the core problem of the banks. However, he failed to mention who had slept on the job of regulating the banks and thereby did not provide the country with advance warning of the crisis that has brought us to our knees. Essentially, he failed to mention the total mismanagement of our finances by his predecessor, the present Taoiseach.

The only efficiency that has come to light in the last two years is that of this Government which has shamefully manipulated the country's finances and resources to shore up the shameful dealings of its cronies. The Government is a model of efficiency in this regard. A whole country has been held to ransom for the good of a number of bankers, developers and speculators, members of the gold circle of cronies, the men of the Galway tent.

There is huge anger in the country that not one banker or politician has been brought to trial for reckless abandonment of the trust was put in them. Despite a bill, to date, of €2 million there is no expected timescale for convictions and criminal investigations are set to last for years. It is a nightmare to consider that one third of the staff of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement is working on the investigation into Anglo Irish Bank because the matter will drag on and more and more personnel will be needed.

Along with the investigations into reckless banking, it appears it may take more than 60 years to correct the chronic over-development and re-zoning of lands in some parts of the country, including the midlands, a direct consequence of the failure of Government to regulate the planning sector. On the one hand banks were recklessly lending, while on the other planning permissions were also recklessly handed out because lending and building were tied together. I refer to the figures for my constituency of Longford-Westmeath, where, combined with figures for counties Cavan, Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo, housing stock increased by 49.8% between 2002 and 2009, from 90,491 to 135,544 units. By April 2006, 19% of houses in these counties were vacant but nevertheless 20,500 extra units were built up to 2009.

The amendments tabled to this motion by the Government are at best laughable and at worse a deliberate attempt to deceive. Like a parrot mindlessly repeating what it has learnt by rote, the Government once again blames the situation on the global financial crisis and follows this with a litany of meaningless justifications for the so-called remedial measures it has taken. No mention is made of what should have been done prior to the crash but was not. There is no mention of the collusion with the banks. or of the bank bail-outs which come at the expense of the jobs, health and well-being of our citizens.

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