Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuireann Sinn Féin fáilte roimh an rún seo. Cabhróidh muid leis an Teach é a thaisteal tríd an Oireachtais. Is céim tábhachtach é an rún chun cúnamh a thabhairt don Chomhchoiste Fiosrúcháin i dtaobh na Géarchéime Baincéireachta. Sinn Féin fully supports the banking inquiry in its efforts to delve into the aspects of the bank guarantee and bailout that have not been explored to date, including the nature of the economic and political power of the Twenty-six Counties. The key to the banking inquiry lies in the relationships at the heart of the elitist State. I refer to the dynamic between developers, finance and the State.

When the banking inquiry heard evidence last week from Professor Bill Black of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, asked him about an article he wrote in 2009 in which he called for the prosecution of "elite control frauds" regardless of their political patrons. Deputy Doherty asked Professor Black to explain what he meant by "political patrons" and to speak about "the effect such a relationship would have on the financial crisis". In response, Professor Black made it clear that "if you bring cases against powerful bankers, they will enlist their political allies and they will give very large political contributions to do that". Of course he was talking about the United States, but he went on to say that the United States is not unusual in those terms, adding that "if you take on really powerful bankers you will find that you get political push-back".

It is not the purpose of the banking inquiry to look into individuals. It is required to look into systems, practices and procedures. This means facing up to the uncomfortable fact that there are strong links between politics and finance in the Twenty-six Counties. We know, for example, that the former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, played golf with Seán FitzPatrick and the regulator in Druids Glen in County Wicklow in 2008, a mere two months before the bank guarantee decision was made. We know from a book, The FitzPatrick Tapes, that they talked about Seán Quinn and his loans to Anglo Irish Bank and that the Taoiseach promised to pass the information to the Central Bank. Such was the nature of the links between finance and politics in the Twenty-six Counties that a regulatory matter could be discussed and sorted out, as it were, over a game of golf in County Wicklow.

Of course there is nothing illegal about a game of golf, but illegality is not the issue here. We are looking at a very small world, one that is open to a select number of people and closed to most others. We got a glimpse of that in the banking crisis. We know that 50% of Irish loans in Anglo Irish Bank were in the hands of 20 individuals and that 51% of the commercial loan book of Irish Nationwide Building Society was in the hands of 25 individuals. When this was put to Professor Black, he responded by saying he had "never seen a concentration that high at any financial institution of any size anywhere in the world at any time in history". This is a phenomenal thing to say about our crisis. He told the inquiry that it was "absolutely - no questions and no ifs, ands or buts - utterly unsafe and unsound". He said that if he had been the regulator, he "would have begun efforts to stop it immediately" and worked on putting Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide into "receivership".

Yesterday's developments in the HSBC debacle, which was raised by my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, in October 2013, exposed how tax avoiders are treated by the Revenue Commissioners. There are no dawn raids and no detentions. Instead, there is just a quiet conversation and a settlement fee. Maybe there is a round of golf as well, just between friends. Who knows?

We welcome this motion and the efforts to map the relationships that underpin finance, property and the State apparatus in the Twenty-six Counties. We will work to take down that apparatus and make sure the democratic State functions properly in future.

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