Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh don cheapachán sa Roinn Airgeadais a luaigh an cainteoir a chuaigh romhaim. Guím gach rath pé duine ar bith a bheidh ag stiúradh an Roinn sin mar go bhfuil amanna crua romhainn agus cinnithe iontacha tábhachtacha le glacadh. Caithfidh mé a rá go sílim gur chóir scrúdú mar is ceart a bheith déanta, ní hamháin ar an té seo ach ar achan duine atá ag lorg áit sinsearach taobh istigh den Roinn. Má tá ceapachán nua le déanamh, ba chóir scrúdú mar is ceart a dhéanamh. Tá faitíos orm níos mó a rá sa chomhthéacs seo ós rud é go gcuireadh as an Dáil mé don chéad uair riamh agus bhí orm an Teach a fhágáil an t-am deireanach a chuir mé ceist fá choinne an ábhair seo. Nuair atá na meáin ag déanamh scrúdú ar an té seo - níl mé ag rá an bhfuil sé oiriúnach le bheith os cionn an Roinn Airgeadais nó nach bhfuil - sílim go bhfuil sé ceart agus cóir go mbeadh deis ag an gcoiste an scrúdú céanna a dhéanamh. Ciallaíonn sé sin go mbeadh athrú intinne agus athrú meoin ann ó thaobh an Rialtais de. B'fhéidir gurb é an deacracht atá ag an Rialtas le próiseas ceapacháin trédhearcach ná go dtabharfadh sé deis do dhaoine eile taobh amuigh den Aire ceisteanna a chur agus tuairimí a nochtadh ó thaobh an cheapacháin de. Agus é sin ráite, guím gach rath ar an té a bheidh i gceannas ar an Roinn. Guím gach rath fosta ar John Moran, atá ag fágáil na Roinne, i gcomhthéacs cibé rud a dhéanfaidh sé san am atá amach romhainn.

Mar a dúirt mé anseo inné, níl dabht ar bith ná go bhfuil an méid atá ag tarlú sa Dáil inniu scannallach. Caithfimid an Bille seo a chur tríd roimh 4.42 i.n. inniu. Bhí orainn ár gcuid leasuithe ar an mBille a chur síos sular chuir an tAire tuairimí an Rialtais agus tuairimí na Roinne ó thaobh an Bhille chun cinn. Ní bheidh deis againn leasú ar bith a chur síos ar Chéim na Tuarascála. Tá sé seo mar cheann de na dóigheanna is measa le reachtaíocht a láimhseáil sa Dáil.

Sinn Féin has previously objected to the manner in which this legislation is being dealt with today. It is important that I again stress our dissatisfaction with the manner in which the legislation is being dealt with by the Government. It shows contempt for democracy and debate. It is clear that no amendments will be accepted on Committee Stage and that there will not be an opportunity to table amendments on Report Stage, as Members who wished to table amendments were required to do so within hours of publication of the Bill and prior to hearing the Minister's contribution on Second Stage.

Nobody in the House has been arguing for a stimulus more than Sinn Féin.

It has been a central part of our policy for many years to contend there are other ways of reducing the deficit and getting people back to work. That part of the jigsaw was the need to stimulate the economy and ensure the banks were lending to SMEs and also in other areas. We highlighted the need to use resources we had at our disposal to ensure that would happen. Three years on, we finally see some movement on the part of the Government.

The Minister for Finance spoke about the agreement secured last year between KfW and the State to inject money into an entity such as that being established. I do not understand why the Government waited until the end of this parliamentary session to introduce this legislation. Our views mean nothing because the Bill will go through. The Government has made it very clear that it will be passed tonight; the use of the guillotine is to be imposed. The Taoiseach tells us it is the first time the guillotine has been used this year. One could argue that a Bill such as this does not have major significance, but we should delve into it and ask whether this is true. When I read the legislation, I note that it stipulates the State can fund the new company to the tune of €5 billion and that the Minister can guarantee loans issued by it to the tune of €4 billion. Perhaps it is regarded as a Bill that does not require proper parliamentary scrutiny and proper consideration, with sufficient time allowed between Second Stage, Committee Stage and Report Stage to ensure we get it right.

When considering amending the Companies Act such as section 60, phrases such as "the normal course of lending" might mean nothing to us, but if we had paid attention to the courts and the protracted Anglo Irish Bank trial in recent weeks, we would know that that term was at the very core of the trial and prosecution of those found guilty of breaches of the Companies Act. Let us not debate the sections of the Bill in a proper, meaningful way: that is what the Government has suggested to us. This is not a Bill about investing a couple of hundred million euro of taxpayers' money in an area of the economy; rather it is a Bill that contains potential liabilities in the order of billions of euro. I refer to the figure of €4 billion for loans and a maximum of €5 billion that can be injected into the company. Therefore, it goes without saying this is the wrong way to deal with the matter. The debate on the Bill should not be guillotined today and proper respect should be accorded to the people and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The programme for Government made a clear commitment to establish a strategic investment bank. Where stands that commitment? What we have is a very poor substitute for a State bank investing in the economy. It is very clear that the body is not a bank because banks have licences. If one wants to set up a bank, one must have a banking licence. The Government went to extreme lengths to try to appease the Labour Party, in particular, which argued that a strategic investment bank would be central to its platform. It went to extreme lengths to change the law, not once but twice. On one occasion, it changed the law to use the word "bank" in the name of the company. That would probably not fool people sufficiently to have them believe the body is a bank; therefore, it also had to change the law to remove the word "limited". If we were to use the word "limited", people would understand it was not a bank but a company. The Government made two changes to the law to try to dress up the company as a bank. There is a saying in Irish, “Cuir síoda ar ghabhar agus is gabhar i cgónaí é.” The Americans refer to putting lipstick on a pig. No matter how one dresses up the entity, it is not a bank. That is a major problem I envisage with the legislation. The entity should be set up as a strategic investment bank that would lends to the real economy. The lending brief should be broader than SME lending.

The company on which the entity is very much styled, KfW, provides in a very meaningful way loans for SMEs. That is but one part of its structure. The other parts involve investing in housing, the environment and other areas with an economic benefit. The Germans used the bank to create the stimulus package the German economy needed at the time in question, while keeping the arrangement off the balance sheet. It seems clear that the Government intends to have the entity focus solely on SMEs which are very much starved of and require funding. However, the scope should be wider. We should be ambitious for a State bank if it is to receive a banking licence. Then again, we probably will not have time to dip into the real meaning of the legislation. It refers to lending to enterprises and "other persons in the State". What does the phrase "other persons in the State" mean? It is referred to time and again. Section 2 refers to the purpose of encouraging “the giving of credit in a prudent manner to enterprises and other persons in the State, in particular SMEs...”. Since it is not just SMEs, what does the phrase “other persons in the State” mean? What limitations are being set for the fund? Are there limitations? Can anybody legally avail of it, although the direction of the fund is to provide for SMEs, in particular? These are the points I would like to tease out in a proper debate on the issue.

The proposed structure of the company represents a half-hearted attempt to do what is required. The record of the Government in gaining access to European Investment Bank funding is not good. Unless the commercial agreements of KfW are made public, we will be in the dark on whether it is a good way to fund the new body. We need to consider in detail the question of whether we are sure the funding mechanism proposed is the best one. I refer to having one of the top ten German banks provide loans for this company which it will lend on to others. What guarantee is there that the banks will pass on funding to SMEs to which they would not otherwise make credit available? The statement from the Government makes it very clear that the banks will have to ensure the money is passed on to SMEs that comply with rigorous state aid rules, but the legislation contains no provision in this regard. A major problem with it is that it is very bare; it does not have much detail and only creates the skeleton of the company. Actually, the detail is utterly absent. There is a sense of déjà vuand we are being asked again to trust the Government regarding what it claims it will do. We are asked not to worry about the fact that it is asking us to guarantee €4 billion in loans and support its commitment to inject €5 billion into the fund. We are asked not to worry that there is nothing in the legislation that can actually ensure the banks will pass on the funding to those most in need of credit in the SME sector and that there is no supervisory mechanism or hard and fast rule in the legislation that will force the banks to pass on the money or punish them if they do not do so.

I have made it very clear to the Minister that I do not trust the Government. The vast majority of the people do not trust it either, which is no revelation. I did not trust the last Government and the people were rightly shown that this was justified. The Government came into office with the promise that it would do things differently. One of its first decisions was to proceed in exactly the same way as its predecessor and invest our money in broken banks. I have extreme concerns about the Bill. I do not see enough in the legislation, even if it establishes the bare bones of a new body that will guarantee extra support for SMEs on the ground. There is nothing in it that will stop the banks that have been bailed out from simply soaking up extra cheaper funds. They received enough public funds to waste on salaries and in other areas.

Under the mortgage arrears resolution targets, the Central Bank had the stick of being able to inflict capital penalties, and that should be available in respect of banks and other bodies that access funding under the SBCI if they do not pass it on to the real economy. There should be extra provisions in this Bill that would allow the Central Bank to use its powers to ensure the funding that comes from this company to the banks is not just soaked up in the normal course of the bank's lending, which the bank would lend anyway. It must be additional. I also believe we should closely examine allowing the company to directly fund SMEs. Sinn Féin strongly believes in a State bank investing in the economy. That means investing in our physical, social and environmental infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the Bill falls short, and we do not have a sufficient amount of time to scrutinise it. It is envisaged that the fund will be financed by a German bank, presumably at a profit to that bank, and the European Investment Bank. It is an example of how broken our system is, six years later, that we are relying on a German bank to fund a company that is not a bank to fund the banks, some of which we own, to fund small and medium enterprises that are starved of funding. The craziness of the type of structure we are trying to create, six years later, in order that State-owned banks can lend to businesses demonstrates the failure in the past three years of the Government's policies on banks and lending to small and medium enterprises.

See this speech in context