Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

Deputy Heather Humphreys said in her maiden speech on the Bill that there was an element of closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. I hope I am not putting words in her mouth, but that is putting it mildly. The Central Bank and Credit Institutions (Resolution) (No. 2) Bill 2011 is an utterly pathetic attempt to make it look as if the Government and the European authorities are doing something to prevent a repeat of the financial madness that went on in the banking system in this country and across Europe that produced the financial crisis, but in actual fact does nothing about it and retains the key features of the banking and financial system. It protects precisely the features that led to the crash in the first place. This is smoke and mirrors, spin and a smokescreen to make it look as if one is dealing with the problem when in fact one has no intention of getting to its root. I am not sure if the Government understands that because this proposed legislation is in fact a measure which the Government has been dictated to introduce by the IMF and the EU. When one sets aside all the spins, this is what the EU-IMF deal for this country and similar deals imposed elsewhere seeks to do. What they are really about is protecting the banking system that wrecked our economy and ensuring that nothing is done to infringe upon its right to make profits regardless and to be protected in the present situation against any attempt by anybody to make the bankers take on the burden of their reckless gambling and speculation. This is in the first line of the third review for fiscal consolidation and financial sector reforms in the memorandum of understanding for this quarter. On recapitalisation, the authorities will ensure that a process of a banking system recapitalisation is immediately set in motion. That is the bottom line, recapitalisation at all costs, force us to borrow money at high interest rates to pump into these banks to recapitalise them so that their balance sheets are okay; so that they can return to profitability and carry on doing what they did before, the sort of reckless behaviour that led to the crisis.

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