Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Once upon a time what we now call banking was known as usury and it was illegal to lend money at interest because back in those days they understood the potential for lenders to engage in profiteering and extortion, and held that to be completely immoral. We have moved from that and now not only is it not illegal to engage in extortion and profiteering when lending money to people, but these institutions rule the roost and dictate policy, and governments cower before them as they blatantly engage in extortion and profiteering. It is quite extraordinary.

I commend Fianna Fáil on raising the issue. I disagree fundamentally with its solution for dealing with it because we do not need more market and competition to deal with this. We do not need more banks lending money which always hammer out an informal cartel arrangement anyway to deal with this sort of extortion and profiteering. We need a public banking system where banking is not about profit and extortion but is about allowing the circulation of money to the benefit of all citizens, the economy and society as a whole.

Considering the extortion that is particularly being suffered by variable rate mortgage holders, why on earth are we allowing the banks that we bailed out to do this to people? It was laughable for the Taoiseach to claim that our banking policy was not to the benefit of the bankers, but was to the benefit of the consumers and mortgage holders. Are mortgage holders, who are unable to pay their mortgages because of extortionate interest rates, feeling the same as Mr. Richie Boucher when he collects his monthly pay check, which could probably pay the mortgage interest on about ten mortgages in one month?

See this speech in context