Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

The bulk of that flight of money took place because of a loss of corporate deposits, not bond finance, which is term debt and which expires at certain dates. Corporate deposits were crucial to the funding and the excessive funding that took place in the banks during the period culminating in 2007. Those corporate deposits and that base was eroded out of the Irish banking system and happily the European Central Bank provided us with the necessary collateral to ensure that the banking system did not collapse.

The Government guarantee also assisted in ensuring that a collapse did not take place. It has been pointed out time and again that were a collapse permitted, we would have had mass unemployment. Despite all the old guff about jobs from Deputy Morgan and others, that is what would have happened. In fairness to the Deputy, he saw the merit of that argument when he voted for the guarantee. I will give him credit for that.

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