Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)

The Minister, Deputy Noonan, said that 30 September 2008 was the blackest day in our country's history since the Civil War. Unfortunately, there have been many days since then to compete with it, and today will probably go down as one of those days. It was with a sense of déjÀ vu that I listened to his contribution. I see now that Fine Gael and the Labour Party have morphed into Fianna Fáil. We could just swap the sides over and we would hear the same story.

The Minister says he will break the dependence of the banks on the State, but I fear the banks will break the State. This is happening and will take place very quickly. After pumping €70 billion into zombie banks, the best we can hope for is that in two years' time banks will begin lending again. That is a sad reflection of where we are. In two years, countless small businesses will go to the wall because of their inability to obtain finance. In two years, thousands of families will be evicted because they are out of work and cannot pay their mortgages, and the Government will do nothing to assist them. We must wait until 2013 to have a banking system that might work.

The Minister stated that there comes a point at which the debt may become unsustainable. We arrived at that point at 4.45 p.m. today.

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