Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Taoiseach to convene a plenary Cabinet session to discuss these matters and to be advised, in an evidential way, about what is taking place at these levels.

The Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, demonstrated that the banks do not have experienced visitation audit or inspection teams. If they had, we would know better what is going on in the banks but we do not have a clue. No one has an honest, evidence based assessment of what is going on because the process is like being in a hall of moving mirrors. It is a tragedy because 100,000 households are in a distressed position and some of them are experiencing disease and death as a result. The creditors in Europe do not have a clue what is going on either, notwithstanding the pats on the head we may receive from Chancellor Merkel. Opinion articles written by the German finance Minister in the Financial Times have been correctly dismissed by evidence based counter-arguments showing that Mr. Schäuble does not have a proper handle on the issue.

Ireland is being pushed around like a tea trolley and Irish people have been burdened with approximately €60 billion of misplaced debts.

The two so-called pillar banks are behaving like zombie banks, and they need capital and management as I have said. The conversion of the promissory note into long-term 40-year bonds was not negotiated but given to us. It was only given to us because the outsiders know that Ireland's economic breathing would have stopped.

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