Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

It is quite extraordinary, on the day and week that is in it, that the Government is introducing this statutory instrument for the approval of the House. The Irish people - and, I believe, a significant number of Deputies in the House - do not believe what the Government is telling us. This statutory instrument, to which the Government hopes the House will give effect, brings the guarantee forward a whole year, from 1 January until 31 December 2011. The idea that this must come before the House for approval now, in the middle of November, when we have another full month before the House rises, is absurd, particularly in view of the current economic and financial uncertainty and the uncertainty about the Government's position and about what is coming down the tracks in view of the information we received last night. There is fundamentally an issue of political credibility. The markets do not believe the Government, nor do the Irish people. This House does not believe it. Yet, absurdly, the Minister of State is suggesting that this statutory instrument should be given a free pass in the House today while this uncertainty exists. I suggest this is ridiculous.

I regret that the Minister for Finance could not be here. I understand where he is today and we all know the scale of the challenge he faced yesterday and today, but why could this not have waited another week or two weeks before the deadline of 31 December? This is the wrong thing to do.

The Minister of State, in his opening remarks to the House this afternoon, stated, "Yesterday's euro group statement on Ireland welcomed the measures taken to date by Ireland to deal with issues in its banking sector, including the bank guarantee, which the euro group affirms has helped to support the Irish banking sector at a time of great dislocation." What else could it have said, given the extraordinary crisis the country now faces? The suggestion that the European institutions and governments have supported the position of the Irish Government from the start of the crisis until now is fundamentally untrue. I do not have to remind the Minister of the firm commitments that were given in this House when the guarantee was first proposed. In answer to questions posed from this side of the House it was stated clearly that it was not an issue of solvency, that the banks were fundamentally sound, and that all that had to be accepted was the necessity to guarantee their position so that liquidity would return to the market and the position of the banks could be upheld. In the course of that debate in 2008 the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, said in reply to Deputy Noonan:

Several Deputies raised the question of solvency. I have made it clear throughout discussions on this subject that the central issue confronting the Government last Monday evening was the liquidity of the Irish banks, not the question of solvency.

However, we know that to be wholly untrue. The House was misled by the Government from start to finish and it has no credibility in suggesting that this measure should now be passed by this House at this stage because the people have no faith in the position. We know now that effectively the banks were broken and the suggestion that the Government did not know at the time is wholly inaccurate and untrue. The stem of this problem, as accurately summed up in the past 48 hours, is that the debts and liabilities of the banks are effectively the State's debts and liabilities. We are now joined at the hip, as it were, because of the fundamental guarantee the Government introduced in 2008. We were told that once we got through the initial crisis, the alleged wall of cash would be provided to businesses and things would get back on track. However, instead we have had inertia in the past two years and three months throughout the crisis. As other countries have got on with the task of rebuilding their economies, we have been stagnant because of the poor decisions taken by the Government in that rushed period at the end of September 2008.

It is now fundamentally a question of political and economic credibility. Who is to be believed? The credibility of the Government has been shot through. At the time of the debate, the House was informed that the loss in Anglo Irish Bank would be a maximum of €4.5 billion, but look at the price now. Effectively one bank brought down our economy - the Fianna Fáil bank, the bank that built Fianna Fáil and the bank that was bankrolled by Fianna Fáil. Let us consider the exposure we now face through Anglo Irish Bank when were told at the time that it would be €4.5 billion. At the time the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, told us that this would be the cheapest bank rescue anywhere in the world. We accept there is always a necessity for a guarantee, but the blanket guarantee proposed was utterly inappropriate in the circumstances. When we proposed at the time that the exposure of the guarantee should be up to a maximum of €10 billion the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, stated that he would be utterly surprised if the amount was as high as that.

The Government has now come to the House to ask permission to continue with the scheme in place based on its record which is there for all to see. What is frightening about this crisis is the way in which the people have been betrayed by the Government time and time again. It is one thing to say that a Government is unpopular, has taken the wrong policy option or has been too long in office. However, to deliberately mislead the public is an entirely separate argument. Over the course of the weekend when the BBC, Reuters and others were telling us that discussions had started between officials of our Government, the ECB, the Commission and the IMF, a series of Ministers and Ministers of State told us that was a fantasy and a fiction, and did not happen. There is a fundamental issue of belief and a sense of complete lack of credibility in the position because the Government has misled the House and the people as late as last weekend as to what needs to happen.

This morning I heard the Minister speak about the four-year plan. We were told initially that the plan would be available in the middle of November. It is quite clear that the plan will not be produced next week despite what the Taoiseach said last week because the IMF now needs to see that plan and see the colour of the money within it. Where is the bank resolution scheme? One of the Government's debating points in the past year was that it would introduce a bank resolution scheme, as other countries have done, setting out exactly the terms upon which the Central Bank and regulator could get effectively into the banking system yet we have not even seen a proposal from Government to date. Taking its own arguments, how are we to accept that when such a scheme has not been put in place?

When other countries have dealt with this difficulty and have moved on, why are we still in the mire two years and three months later? People want the answer to that fundamental question. It is evidently the case that it is down to a series of mistaken decisions on Anglo Irish Bank, recapitalisation and other matters that the Government has taken in the past two years or so.

The people want to write a new chapter and to move on from this. They want to get to the bottom of the matter and want some hope that we can rebuild the economy from the ruins left by Fianna Fáil. The idea at this stage that we would give a blanket guarantee by way of resolution in this House would not be fitting to our parliamentary responsibilities and that is why we will not support it at this time.

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