Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of the Government amendment to this motion before the House. If one strips away the political claims of the Fine Gael motion, the essence of it is calling on the Government to ensure that the Garda Síochána and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement are adequately resourced so that files may be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions and prosecutions taken where appropriate. There is unanimity in the House on those issues. As I understand it, nobody has said on behalf of the Garda Síochána or the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement that they lack resources in processing these particular investigations. In fact, I have heard the Garda Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, say he had adequate resources. The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement has not, on any occasion, claimed a lack of resources was impeding the investigations. Extra resources have been made available by Government. Given the priority afforded to these investigations I am sure further resources would be made available if requested.

We often appear in this House to be trying to outdo each other in terms of who is the most angry at what has happened in the banks and in regard to what we would all like to see happen to the bankers. That level of debate does not serve any purpose. Some say we should treat the bankers as subversives and others say they should be thrown in jail or shot. We must focus on the facts. The fact is that these are major complex criminal investigations. As recently as last week, the Garda Commissioner said that he expects some decisions on the progression of these cases will be made by the end of the year. As the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, said approximately 400 statements have been taken so far as part of the investigations, some of which are 150 pages long. I understand that two senior counsel have also been retained to review the evidence gathered and that a mutual assistance hearing will be held in London next month to extradite further evidence from the UK for use in Ireland. We all want to see these investigations concluded as quickly as possible.

Like Deputy Conlon I, too, am angry at this country having to take on an extra €45 billion to €50 billion in national debt as a consequence of the recklessness of bankers who brought the economic future of this country to the brink. We must take a pragmatic view and must ensure that those who were responsible are held to account by the criminal justice system and that these cases are brought forward as quickly as possible. Also, none of us as public representatives should say anything which would in any way prejudice such cases when brought forward and we must identify the causes of the crisis, the subject of the two published preliminary reports by Professor Honohan and Klaus Regling. We must then move to address the clear deficiencies identified in those reports.

I hope it is not the case that when these investigations are concluded a lack of legislation will prevent cases being taken. In other words, it can be found that clear breaches of legislation occurred and that we in this House have not been in any way deficient in our duties to bring forward robust legislation in respect of white collar crime. In that regard I welcome the move by the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, to open up a period of public consultation on the issue of organised and white collar crime. I am sure all of the political parties in this House will contribute proactively to that particular initiative to ensure that in future we have comprehensive and robust legislation to deal with the whole area of white collar crime, which is complex in its nature and will be, in many ways, the crime of the future. I hope we will not be found remiss in that regard.

The Government's strategy in dealing with the banking crisis has been well articulated in the debates over the past two evenings but from the point of view of individual citizens it is important to reassure people that there is a strong deposit guarantee scheme in place, that all deposits up to the first €100,000 in each covered institution is guaranteed in full, and that any deposits with the nationalised bank and An Post, and any element of State savings, is fully guaranteed also.

See this speech in context