Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We should consult Mr. Niclaus Bergmann, chief executive officer of the Sparkhassen, which has 250,000 employees and 29,000 trainee managers across Germany in local and regional areas of banking. The banks are not allowed to trespass on each other, so they understand the businesses to which they are lending. They are lending the deposits of the communities, which give them those deposits from their savings. It is all very sound and is probably the type of thing we should do.

The SBCI is more similar to a venture capital investment bank. It does not even have a licence to take deposits and the word "deposit" is not mentioned anywhere in the Bill. It is always a good test of a bank if its sources of funding and destinations for lending have some type of correlation. That is usually a good foundation. The analogy is a well balanced cardiovascular system in the human body. That is what we should have in mind. However, that means one must do site clearance of the canvas, relieve SMEs of the legacy debt that is an impossible burden and make the banks wake up, shape up and do the work they must do, with properly trained management and executives. Those people are available but they must be harnessed and motivated.

That is the task at hand. If one rushes off to do something that is a little too hasty, but has the appearance of being solid because it is in the presentation format of what we are familiar with, such as this Bill, one gets a false sense of security. Experienced pragmatism should underlie whatever we do to provide finance for SMEs and households. The households must be relieved too. We might as well put it out there to the creditors, which is the euro system, and tell Mr. Draghi that we got it all wrong but have woken up, that the promissory bonds are all wrong and we are tearing them up and that it will be something for him to organise in his housekeeping of the euro system across Europe. A sum of €25 billion is small beer in the context of the trillions of the eurozone, and it could do it.

I thank the Chair for her forbearance. I have blended part of a Second Stage speech, which was not available to the Independents, with some comments relating to amendment No. 1. I thank Members for their patience in listening to those observations.

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