Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on the Government's priorities for the year ahead. It would be absurd not to say there has been a degree of stabilisation across areas of national endeavour. However, that stabilisation is based on a plan agreed with and imposed by the troika and the previous Government that found itself in a panic crisis. There are no great marks for taking a stabilising approach to what was a survival plan. We relied on troika loans and bilateral loans from the United Kingdom and Sweden to bridge the gap between the excesses of expenditure and income for a period of three years. It has been sold and spun in so many ways that people are confused and exhausted. The reality we are living with is one of hurt across households, among young people and the elderly. It is very palpable and we are hearing it every day. It is truthfully a cry of pain and hurt.

It is not good enough, in the context of the strong numerical mandate given on 26 February 2011, leading to the formation of a coalition Government on 9 March 2011 with the largest ever majority in our history, that the old ways of doing business continue. The unthinking, donkey-like behaviour continues today and that is just not on. There is no imaginative, free, challenging, creative, honest or fair thinking on the part of backbenchers of the two Government parties. It is embarrassing. They come into the House, debate in one way but vote in the way they are told. The debate on the abolition of the Seanad was a case in point. Many Labour Party and Fine Gael Senators and Deputies voiced their deep concerns that the proposal to abolish the Seanad was not safe or sound and they were right. However, the leadership of both parties told them that they were not supposed to think but to vote and they did so. That is shameful.

We are here to discuss the priorities for the year ahead, but the big challenge, the gaping priority, the beached whale, is completely ignored - the debt of the country. It is a sad inevitability that unless we achieve a write-down on the debt and an overhaul of the banker, auditor and political culture which drove the country into economic Armageddon, in a few years time we will still be in a toxic swamp and the distress will not be alleviated.

The pain is only in remission. On “Morning Ireland” recently, one of our most experienced and esteemed journalists described the news of the sale by Wilbur Ross and Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial Holdings of their stakes in Bank of Ireland as “finally a bit of good news for Irish banks.” It was weird and unreal to hear that. How on earth could the sale by vulture investors of a shareholding in Bank of Ireland be greeted as good news? If only people paused for a moment and did the simple Corn Flakes box sums. These two firms sold 6.4% of the bank for €690 million, yielding a profit of €90 million on their entire shareholding. They now still hold 12.8% of the bank, worth €1.3 billion. There is nothing good for the Irish people about that.

The journalist’s statement alone demonstrates that we have come full circle when it comes to our understanding of finance and property in this economy. We simply have not got a clue. For years, the media and politics were cheerleaders for endless economic growth and rising property prices as the hallmarks of a sophisticated economy whose model could be replicated all over the world. They and the banks’ boards did not understand banking or the financial engineering of bank balance sheets. This will come out in the banking inquiry. When the chickens came home to roost, it will be seen that there was at least a degree of scrutiny in the role finance and banking played in our economic demise. It took €64 billion of taxpayers' money, representing almost half of the entire economy, for the media and politicians alike to stand back and confront the insidious nature of credit and its oversupply to one area of the economy. Property developers cannot do anything without credit and credit cannot arrive unless there are bank boards. The auditors were meant to arrive at a conclusion as to whether the balance sheets and statements represented a true and fair view of the banks’ affairs. Six years later, nothing has happened. It is pathetic.

The deafening silence from the entire Government, which represents two thirds of the seats in the Dáil, as well as the silence from the two major Opposition parties, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, to the announcement of Wilbur Ross's disposal of his shareholding in Bank of Ireland demonstrates that, after five years, Irish politics, the establishment and the media have gone back to business as usual. On Leaders’ Questions yesterday, Deputy Healy hit the bull’s-eye. He did the sums and showed that all those Members who stood by lauding this development as a great event were in fact showing collectively how we are idiots and are not looking out for the people. Bank of Ireland has done nothing about restructuring its customers’ loans. It claims it has but I know it has not as I have done several pro bonohelp-outs for people with the bank. The way they are treating those individual loans is pathetic.

The politicians will look after politics while the bankers look after the banks. Our national broadcaster will report increasing share prices in banks as gospel evidence that a corner has been turned. In January 2007, the market capitalisation of Anglo Irish Bank was about €10 billion, lauded as the best banking model in the world by consultancy firm Oliver Wyman, which will do the eurozone bank stress tests soon. Of course, Anglo collapsed with the same balance sheet a year later with losses of between €35 billion and €40 billion. That is how clever the markets are.

Do we believe that if the vulture investors are now departing our seas, it means our banking system and culture are improving? We need to wake up and smell the coffee. There are too many families hurting. That is why I get annoyed, justifiably. I get angry when I see the Government standing back and not doing anything about this. It is too easy to go to events such as today’s European People's Party convention and congratulate each other.

The debate is over. We are not getting a write-down, separating bank debt and sovereign debt. Why should the Irish people be loaded with all the losses of a private banking system? Will there be a recognition that we need a retrospective separation of bank debt and sovereign debt? The bank debt is losses.

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