Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)

At the outset I congratulate Deputy Jan O'Sullivan on her new appointment as she is a colleague from Limerick. I wish her well and there is no better person for the job. I also congratulate Deputy John Perry, who has just departed the Chamber, on his appointment.

I am grateful for the opportunity to partake in today's discussion on banking and we have had many debates over the past few years on the topic. This is the first time we have spoken to the topic on this side of the House. It struck me last week while listening to the Minister, Deputy Noonan, that his policy is a clear continuation of the previous Government's actions in dealing with the country's banking problems. The Minister is correct as the previous Government's policies in dealing with the problem were correct. It attempted to approach the issue in the best possible manner and took the best advice available at that point in time. The advice was held up by independent people no more eminent than Professor Honohan.

In that regard I was not surprised to see in the detail of last week's statement that the policy was one of continuation. I regret the politics played over the past number of years with regard to the banking issue, especially as we approached the election. We did not hear from the Minister last week with regard to burden sharing or burning bondholders but we heard about recapitalisation. That is correct. During the election, all we heard from Fine Gael and Labour was that there would be a burning of bondholders and no further recapitalisation.

Fine Gael and Labour are now in Government and must take real-life decisions. When the parties were on this side of the House they took the populist route and we should take the opportunity to point this out. I am not saying that I disagree with the parties' actions but I should point out the inconsistency. They led people to believe that they would approach the issue in a completely different fashion by burning bondholders and not recapitalising banks.

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