Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Nyberg report is the third report done on the banking crisis and, as other speakers noted, we are no wiser about what occurred. The report does not name names and we still do not know what happened on 29 September 2008, the day on which the bank guarantee was given. The 200,000 word report includes only five paragraphs on what occurred at the meeting in question for which minutes were not kept.

According to the Nyberg report, discussions up to and on 29 September were based on very deficient information. The assumption was that there were no solvency issues in the banks, merely temporary liquidity problems caused by international factors. Why was the information so deficient? The report states that from mid-2007 onwards, there was improved co-operation between key institutions and important preparatory crisis management work was put in place. What does this mean? What crisis management measures were taken? What prompted increased co-operation and why were the then Taoiseach, former Deputy Brian Cowen, Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and senior officials in the Department of Finance so unprepared and ill informed that it resulted in such disastrous decision making? Despite the publication of three reports on the matter, we still do not know the answers to these key questions.

One does not need to be a banking or financial expert or to have read the three reports on the crisis to know that there was a cartel of consensus at work, some of which was driven by fear. When opposition voices pointed out that the market was crashing, they were ridiculed. Speaking to an ICTU conference, the then Taoiseach, former Deputy Bertie Ahern, told critics to commit suicide and, to my dismay, the delegates present responded with laughter.

While the Nyberg report does not name names, I will name a few familiar names today. Of the total salary package of the executive directors of the three largest banks in 2007, Brian Goggin earned €3,998,000, David Drumm earned €3,274,000, Eugene Sheehy earned €2,105,000, Colm Doherty, whose name has become more familiar in recent days, earned €1,663,000, John O'Donovan earned €1,581,000, and William McAteer earned €1,427,000. The list goes on. It is important to name and shame these people time and again. Their names continue to crop up and people are angry that they are getting away with such salaries and pensions.

Mr. Doherty, we learned in recent days, walked away with a pension of €3 million. Why will the Government not impose a 95% tax on the pensions of these individuals? We do not need to change their contracts. If we imposed a 95% tax on their salaries and pensions, we would then be able to invest more in the economy. I do not accept the Government's repeated statements that it cannot address the issue of massive and ludicrous payments and pensions to those who brought the country to its knees.

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, pushed all the right buttons in speaking about the previous Government. Why is the Government of which she is a member pursuing the same economic agenda as the previous Government of bailing out the banks? It will also potentially privatise crucial State assets and hand them over to the same profiteers who caused the economic crisis in the first instance. Those who pay the price for the crisis were not responsible for it. Neo-liberal capitalism and greed destroyed the economy. Today, the parents of autistic children gathered outside the Dáil to fight for the rights of the children because money is no longer available for special needs assistants. We must start to make the right choices on behalf of citizens.

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