Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Governor, Patrick Honohan, went on "Morning Ireland" the morning before and told the nation what was going to happen. I welcome the publication of the Trichet letter.

The reference to the banking inquiry was that it is in the process of being established. Deputy Lynch is the chairperson and work is ongoing which he and other members are taking extremely seriously. They will be doing important work on behalf of the State. I hope the publication of the material today will free up quite a number of the people whom the committee may wish to interview and allow them to speak more freely. In regard to the previous Government, we all remember that two senior Ministers at the time, Noel Dempsey and Dermot Ahern, were not in the loop about the extraordinary developments. The source of what happened in the Trichet letter was the disastrous blanket bank guarantee.

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