Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When the issue was raised in the Dáil last March, the Taoiseach told us he was unaware whether the IFSC Clearing House Group had discussed the issue of a financial transaction tax. Then, in information revealed to The Irish Times by way of a freedom of information request, it became clear that the group and its sub-groups had discussed the issue of a financial transaction tax at 13 meetings between October 2011 and May 2012. Interestingly, the public positions of Ministers dovetailed exactly with the consensus in the financial sector. The Clearing House Group is a Who's Who of the banking and finance sectors and was actually successful in having changes made to the Finance Bill to allow a 30% tax exemption on incomes of between €75,000 and €500,000. Further tax reliefs on school fees of up to €5,000 were included at its behest, despite opposition from Revenue. What I am trying to get at is the relationship between the Government and an elite group such as this. Those citizens in mortgage distress - 160,000 households - do not have a clearing house group and do not have access to the Government at this very top level. Is it not time to review the Government's relationship with the IFSC Clearing House Group?

The Taoiseach said there was a commitment to creating 10,000 new jobs. It would be interesting to find how many of these jobs have been created since the launch of the strategy way back in July last year. We have since had AIB announcing the loss of 2,500 jobs. There have been 1,000 job losses in Bank of Ireland, in addition to 3,700 who have left since 2009. In Ulster Bank there were almost 1,000 job losses in January 2012. In Permanent TSB there were 250 losses in July, while National Irish Bank closed 20 branches, resulting in 100 job losses, in June. It does not give me any satisfaction to recite that litany of bad news items, but I am trying to get between the propaganda and the reality in terms of jobs growth in this sector. I am hugely concerned that the Government, in whatever sector we are dealing with, has a different relationship with the elites - in this case, the financial sector. Compare the Government's relationship with the Clearing House Group and the bankers' attitude to Oireachtas committees. Last week the Taoiseach said the way they were treating Oireachtas committee representatives was totally unacceptable and that the huge bonuses they were receiving were totally unacceptable-----

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