Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Then I have already answered the Deputy's question. The workers will not get new jobs in the banking sector. Those who have IT skills that can be refocused into other areas in which there are opportunities, as Barry O'Leary from the IDA has said, will hopefully find opportunities.

I wish to respond to a comment made by Deputy McDonald about the madness of the building speculation affecting the rich and the powerful. If that had happened it would not have been too bad. Unfortunately, we had the madness where people on CE schemes were offered mortgages and they are the people who have been crucified. Right across the country and in particular in parts of the north west, between Dublin and Sligo, the four counties that are most affected by ghost estates, many of the people who were conned into taking out mortgages were conned into it by the financial sector. They were not necessarily the great and the good. They were, sadly, people who had an aspiration to own property and who were conned into taking a soft loan which in rational banking terms they could never possibly have repaid given the level of their income. That is where the real damage has been done.

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