Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Deputy is making the case why all the evidence as to what led the then Government to make its decision on the bank guarantee should be made available to the people. Everyone knew a banking crisis was on its way when Lehman Brothers went down, as well as the letter from Mr. Trichet and the European Central Bank in respect of the then difficulties in the Irish banking sector.

Without playing politics with this, I would have thought, and Deputy Martin as a Government member would have expected, I am quite sure, that whatever delegations came in to members of the then Government, stating there was a problem, we were running into dry sand and we needed to do something, and if their case was to have a bank guarantee or whatever else, the evidence they would have presented to the then Government, of which Deputy Martin was a member, is not available to this Government. Whether it was ever written down or, if it was, where it went, I certainly do not have access to it. In the interests of everyone, that would have been of fundamental importance. However, for whatever reason, the Department of the Taoiseach has no access to all of that information, evidence and rationale.

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