Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I rise to support the motion and compliment the proposers on it. Both Fine Gael and the Labour Party said in the programme for Government that they would get tough with the banks. It is another broken promise. MABS is at the coalface in this work. It should be provided with more powers. We know the figures, which have been trotted out by everybody tonight. I will not repeat them. I will talk about the people at the coalface, who the Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, must know. He is a businessman and I have often complimented him in that regard. He has his own troubles on which I will not dwell tonight.

The Government did not like Ms Justice Dunne's report and had to find a way around it. What did it do to the ordinary people who are struggling to put food on the table and clothes on their children, meet school costs and pay for vital medicines and hospital charges? What did we get from a Government that promised to get tough on the banks? We got the Personal Insolvency Bill, which provided a veto to banks. It is an insult to the public. Last week in the Dáil and this week in the Seanad, we have been given the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill. What a nice name that is. My goodness. Why did the Government not call it what it is - the eviction Bill? It is nothing short of that. It is outrageous that it is being rammed through the House.

The Government talks about a code of practice for the banks. I have been in meetings in the Central Bank and see what banks are doing to ordinary farm contractors and other business people nationally. They are sending out third force militia - a power above and beyond the Garda Síochána and the Army - to act at the behest of the bankers who know the Government, like the last one, allows them to act with impunity. We used to have an old saying that there was one law for the banks and one law for ordinary people. Now, there is law for ordinary people and no law for the banks. They are operating with impunity while the Government passes law after law to give them a veto and impunity from prosecution. Why would they not treat the people with disdain when they know they can get a nod and wink? Who is the Government hiding? What greater power is being hidden in this country? All it can offer is a harum-scarum Oireachtas inquiry to blame Fianna Fáil or someone else when the public knows the Government is hiding and running.

There is no place that the Government can hide or run to because the people know that the Government betrayed the promises it made them. The Government betrayed the mandate they gave it and wants to hold a six-month Oireachtas inquiry of name-calling and name-blaming to let off the bankers, some of whom, Messrs. Dukes and company, are from the Minister's party.

What about the public interest directors in the banks? I asked the Minister, Deputy Noonan, if they would do something and he told me in plain language they were there to serve the banks, not the public. It was a bit of a spoof the way he came back but that was the message. The banks must be protected, and the Government has done so. How much time have I?

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