The senior members of the previous Government were ambushed in the middle of the night and, erroneously and with grave consequences for this economy and its dependants, signed a blanket bank guarantee to secure the future operation and survival of these greedy and negligent institutions. The people underwrote the financial institutions' debt and became responsible for it, as if they had borrowed the money themselves. The institutions, which would be bankrupt save for the intervention of the citizens of this State, are now lobbying to extract a veto over the non-judicial debt settlement element of this Bill. This veto has the potential to derail negotiations and instigate draconian measures on behalf of the banking sector. Of course, the response is that the individual retains the option of seeking the protection of judicial bankruptcy proceedings. However, is the whole exercise not aimed at averting these consequences? The banks themselves were not so enamoured with the prospect of such proceedings when they shuffled into Government Buildings and huddled together like the moneylenders in the temple in the middle of the night.

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