Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That great error of policy and politics sought to keep Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society in existence when they should at that point have been put into a proper resolution process.

This Government is doing what the previous Government should have done - we are ending Anglo Irish Bank, not scrambling to keep it alive. This is what did not happen in 2008, and the history of what followed is well known. The State took on a risk in giving a blanket guarantee to Anglo Irish Bank and other banks which ultimately it was unable to bear and the previous Government was forced to seek international assistance to sustain the finances of the State.

Tonight, we are wiping these two institutions out of existence for good. We are winding up these institutions and transferring the remaining work of managing out their loans to NAMA. This is part of a broader package of banking measures we are working on with our partners in Europe, which is intended to deal with some of the outstanding issues that remain in our banking system. As the House is aware, we are continuing our negotiations with the European institutions on other aspects of this package, including how to deal with the promissory note. The winding up of IBRC is one component of this package. Negotiations will continue on the other elements,

This is the first necessary step in resolving the promissory note issue. When the Government was formed, it committed itself to the renegotiation of the bad promissory note deal entered into by Fianna Fáil and its supporters. There were those who said, when this Government was formed, that a renegotiation of the promissory note deal could not be done. There were also those who said we would not succeed in the negotiations. There were those who predicted failure at every twist and turn. There are some in the House whose biggest difficulty tonight is that the Government is succeeding.

See this speech in context