Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That was a speech the Tánaiste should have given last night in the debate rather than sending in his junior Ministers to respond to the Technical Group's Private Members' motion. Again, in the role of Labour finance spokesperson in 2010 on the question of extending the timescale of the powers given under the Act, then Deputy Joan Burton, in briefing the Labour Party parliamentary party and urging a "No" vote, said: "Labour does not do blank cheques". Now, it is standing over a blank cheque. The question I asked was will the Tánaiste, as deputy leader of this Government, raise in Cabinet the need to review and amend or, better still, repeal this Act because it is giving a blank cheque to this and future Ministers to pay up to any limit to bail out banks and financial institutions. This is even when we now know the full, unintended consequences. Is this not another capitulation by Labour to Frankfurt?

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