Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)

Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk that said "The buck stops here!". The motto of this Government is "The buck stops everywhere but here." Until such time as the Government stands up and takes responsibility for its actions, God help us, but we will never see economic recovery. Time after time I have listened to excuses such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fact that we have a small open economy, and the sluggish worldwide recovery being put forward in a desperate attempt to deflect blame from the Government. As each of these excuses has been trotted out over the past two years, it has been underscored by the pervasive culture of managerial irresponsibility and lack of accountability. There has been a sense that white-collar crime is not real crime and that it is without any real consequence.

We have had many examples of this, including the extortion of young Irish people in the property market in the past ten years. Many of these people now find themselves in negative equity. This was driven by greed and promoted by the Government. I recently watched a re-run of last year's RTE programme entitled "Aftershock: Ghost Land". Back then it was estimated that there were approximately 600 unfinished estates in the country; we now know the figure is nearer to 2,800.

In preparing for this debate, I was struck by the comments made on this programme by two men from County Cork. They talked about the advertising they had been presented with prior to buying their house. It screamed "Only One House Remaining: €270,000". Today, they live in a ghost estate with no neighbours, inadequate services and many dangerous, unfinished houses. As far as I am concerned, those two men might as well have been mugged on the street. Along with many other people all over the country, they have been victims of white-collar crime. Our attitude towards this type of crime must change, and that change must come from the very top.

The civic, ethical and political will to deliver justice is not at all apparent. The Government has spent two years dazzled in the headlights of a recession largely of their own making, yet many perpetrators of white-collar crime still retain their positions of influence. It was an indictment of the Irish economy when, in 2005, the Irish financial markets were described by The New York Times as "the Wild West of European finance". The Department of Finance and others vigorously defended Ireland's reputation at the time. If we had approached matters differently, would we be in a better position now? Would we be in a better position if we had taken white-collar crime seriously and if we had protected whistleblowers properly? The answer to this question is a resounding "Yes".

Fine Gael has been accused of being populist in tabling this motion. I have no problem with being populist and being on the side of what is right. It is what the people want in this country. We want to see justice. I support this motion wholeheartedly.

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