Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

No Members from the junior Government party are present today. I was intrigued to hear the recent contribution of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government when he described this place as an asylum and said one gets chewed up inside by the scale of the decisions to be made and has sleepless nights, whether one is in negative equity or not. I was equally astounded to hear his contribution on a recent radio programme regarding the way in which the Government arrived at its decision on the bank guarantee that was signed off on 29 September 2008. The Minister for Finance and members of the Government have made it clear, on more than one occasion, that this all erupted when the banks were in discussion with the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and some civil servants in the Department late on the Monday night and that because of the scale of the immediate crisis, it was necessary to make the decision about the bank guarantee in the way it was made. That is what the public, the House and everyone else were expected to believe. However, the Minister, Deputy Gormley, has given a very different version, saying there was a meeting of the Cabinet on the Sunday at which the details of the scheme were raised by the Minister for Finance at the conclusion of the meeting and a clear signal was given that there was an impending crisis and that something would have to be done about it. He made it clear on that radio programme that this was discussed -----

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