Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)

-----and will not level those kinds of charges at the Government.

Mention was made also of the stress testing. We have been in this place before; we thought we had arrived at the final figure, the bottom, in the previous round of stress testing. Professor Honohan testified to that at the time. The new round of stress tests was carried out by Black Rock Consulting and I hope we have finally arrived at the bottom figure. However, we have not received any political certainty in this respect. The Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, stated, in regard to the stress testing, "We do believe the stress tests stand up. I only hope this is final scale of it". We need certainty because banking is built on certainty and confidence. The House now has plenty of experts in banking who will testify to the need for certainty and confidence.

I refer to the notion of the two pillar banks. I agree there must a complete restructuring of the number of banks because the State was oversupplied in this regard. Having two main Irish-owned players will be a good move. Deputy Lenihan clearly indicated during his tenure as Minister for Finance that was the direction in which we were moving. I would not describe it, therefore, as radical but as necessary. However, it must translate into a flow of credit into the real economy.

In regard to the restructuring of the banks, I am very concerned by the absence of any real statement as to how this will affect the people working in the banks of whom there are many, throughout the country and in my constituency, County Limerick. Allied Irish Banks has 270 branches with 12,000 employees; Bank of Ireland has 254 branches. Between them the banks have 26,000 employees, people who live in our communities, whom we represent, and who contribute to our local economies. They heard the announcement last week that many of them potentially face a bleak future. We need to have a degree of certainty. The trade unions have written to the Minister-----

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