Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

This is the third in a series of reports commissioned by the former Minister for Finance on the catastrophic banking crisis. The question of how much this reports adds to our knowledge should be asked given that its final cost will probably be significantly in excess of €1 million.

Essentially, the report presents a European style format regarding its consideration of the wider failings that led to the catastrophe in Ireland. The commission and the two previous investigations were held in private and it is difficult for ordinary members of the public, including public servants who work hard and people working in jobs and businesses who find that they have personally suffered significant loss of income, employment or business, to make judgments.

If Fianna Fáil is to be believed, the report blames everyone and in blaming everyone it blames no one. This is not so. There is a detailed analysis in the report of how the system in Ireland was overtaken by a mania, as it is termed, for property, based on greed and the notion that one could have a banking system or a bank that could grow at 25% per year and, further, that people who were otherwise seasoned observers, whether auditors, accountants, on the boards of banks or brokers, did not question this scenario.

This is important in terms of the report and Mr. Nyberg. His is one of several people now studying Ireland. The person who has best painted the picture so far is Michael Lewis of Vanity Fair. He wrote an exhaustive article and interviewed many people on the record, including myself and the former Minister, Deputy Lenihan, with regard to how the crisis happened.

The work of Mr. Nyberg reminds me in a way of an old book published many years ago on anthropology by Margaret Mead, entitled Coming of Age in Samoa. Now, academics are covering Ireland to identify what happened leading up to the Irish catastrophe and how it happened. Like tulip mania in Holland centuries ago, it is centred on greed and systemic failure. Even if the report does not address this issue, it is centred on the critical failure of the Government of 14 years to be in command and control of the institutions of the State. As members of the Government, the then Ministers were charged with being in overall control and oversight. That is a fundamental fact.

While the report has addressed the tight terms of reference which Deputy Brian Lenihan, as the then Minister, gave it, it does not include consideration of the responsibility of the Government for what happened. The terms of reference of the report specifically addressed issues including the boards of the banks, the auditors, the regulatory system, the Central Bank and the Department of Finance. However, the Government and the Ministers were not put in the frame in this specific report. It is important to state as much in fairness to Mr. Nyberg.

The report has several recommendations and the conclusions reached highlight weaknesses that must be addressed. However, the report does not contain new insights into what could be done to prevent a recurrence or a specific policy of administration designed to give the taxpayer comfort, although comfort is what our taxpayers and citizens require. They require a comfort that we will move away from this, reform and restart the banking system and put in place systems to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again.

The collapse of the banking system was caused by a small number of individuals in a handful of privately-owned banking institutions. It was driven by a deadly combination of greed, arrogance and a self-serving disregard for the risks these individuals were taking and for those who sought to draw attention to those risks. It was not a comfortable space for people such as myself. I was accused in this House of not wearing the green jersey because I had the temerity to be critical of the mad tax breaks that were driving the bubble and the mania ever higher and higher. Certain people, especially from the former Government, failed to acknowledge this. The green jersey agenda was where it was at for a long time but, just like the former Taoiseach's suggestion of committing suicide, basically it served to stifle debate and dissent. Let us bear in mind that Professor Honohan referred in his report to a culture of excessive deference in public institutions. That is hinted at in the report as well. There is a suggestion that perhaps some of those in the institutions formed an insight into what was happening but were deterred from expressing it robustly or from flashing a red warning light as to where all of it was leading.

Since all these discussions were held in private the ordinary public is not in a position to make a judgment. However, it is mentioned and hinted at in both reports. The institutions that have brought the country and the banking system to their current position bear primary responsibility for the devastation of the economy and for the consequential financial ruin, personal and public debt, unemployment and the shattered hopes of hundreds of thousands of families and communities. These individuals are personally culpable and should be made fully accountable for their actions. This is not only a matter of justice, but a vital step towards ensuring that similar devastation cannot be caused by other individuals or groups in the future. We must create a different and better Ireland from this debacle.

The situation of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide is highlighted in the report as being the rotten core. The former Government should have taken action around the time of the Northern Rock issue when former Taoiseach Brian Cowen was the Minister for Finance. At the time he stated in an interview that there would be no bailing out of any banks. I took issue with him on and tested him on this. However, as soon as the flag went up he completely changed his tune.

This report should form an argument around the need for a referendum that would give proper powers of inquiry to an appropriate committee of the House in a structured way to allow for questions relating to accountability to be put forward in an appropriate framework. That is one important point. The second thing absent form this report, which must be pursued by way of investigation, is that just as the person who takes a bribe is responsible for taking the bribe, the briber also has a responsibility. I believe the report skates too lightly over the responsibilities of the institutions of the European Central Bank in respect of the supply of credit. As all of the reports set out, the primary responsibility rests with Ireland and the greedy institutions and individuals who drove the bubble and the mania and that must be acknowledged.

The European Central Bank, however, bears some responsibility for its involvement in the supply of credit to a peripheral economy in which the economic cycle was at a different stage, as it is now, from that in Germany. The eurozone and the euro have brought enormous advantages to this country, but that aspect must be examined in a serious way. It does not, however, absolve the previous Government of culpability, although the role of the ECB and the lack of measures it exercised must be addressed.

To rebuild the banking system and restructure the public sector to do more with less money; to restructure the domestic economy to be more efficient and have lower costs, including for hard-pressed consumers; and, most importantly, to set the trading sectors on a path of sustained growth of output and employment, we must move quickly, decisively and expertly on our path to recovery. The Nyberg report tells us how Ireland lost the last war. The Government must now campaign to put the country back into full recovery mode. The measures outlined by the Minister for Finance set us on that path, but we must also bring to an end the culture of business impunity that has persisted for decades.

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