Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

This report, in its essence, produces nothing new. There is no news in it and no new figures. Indeed, there are no new characters to blame in it, and no institutions. Mr. Nyberg spreads the blame in an even-handed way, which has prompted a large number of people to suggest that this was deliberate and that the report is a whitewash. I do not believe that but it is ineffective in its production and its presentation because of this lack of blame and because it refuses, maybe because of its terms of reference, to name names. We do not come out better informed about what happened. Virtually everything, despite the number of witnesses interviewed by Mr. Nyberg, is already in the public arena.

What is interesting is the relationship painted between the various leading players in the story of the banking collapse. It is a sinister and alarming relationship. Mr. Nyberg criticises the Financial Regulator for what he calls a lack of scepticism. He criticises the auditors for not being in what he calls challenging dialogue with their clients in the banks. He criticises the Department of Finance for being weak in its persistence in coming to the Minister and saying that too much money from the banks was going into property. He criticises, above all, the boards of banks for being inadequate in many ways. What this tells us is that there was a circle of people who were frightened of talking to each other in honest terms, because there was such a cosy relationship between them that anybody who raised the flag and said, "This has to end" would be ostracised. We saw that in Mr. Nyberg's criticism of the fact that people whom he called "contrarians" were in danger of losing their jobs. He was not specific about where these people were - whether it was in the Central Bank or in the individual banks - but it looks as though they were in the banks.

Above all, his criticism of the boards was damning. This is important, because there is something we can do about it. Mr. Nyberg said that the board members did not understand what was happening and were too dependent on management. They went for consensus agreements, meaning that they were frightened of speaking up about matters on which they were not suitably briefed or did not have a particular knowledge. That problem is one that the Minister can remedy now. Although the Government has the right attitude in wanting to reform the banks, the response has been pathetic. For the Minister to say that his remedy for boards of management is to ask the same boards to produce a board renewal plan is completely unacceptable. The last people he should be asking for a renewal plan for the board of AIB is the board of AIB. He should be doing it himself. That is the board that gave Colm Doherty the €3 million we have been discussing for the last few days, yet the Minister is going to ask the board to provide its own renewal plan. It is totally unacceptable.

What does the Minister propose to do about the dummies appointed as public interest directors? These are the same people who stood over and signed the contract of Colm Doherty and allowed it to be honoured. Will those people - Mr. Declan Collier and Mr. Dick Spring - be allowed to stay on the board, or will the Minister remove them? Those people, and similar nominees on all the other boards, should be removed immediately.

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