Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The sheer irony of its Private Members' motion is not lost on anybody inside our outside this House.

It was Fianna Fáil's response to the banking crisis that saw families and businesses across Ireland rather than the bank's creditors bare massive losses. That was the Fianna Fáil way. It is because of these Fianna Fáil responses that the cost of private failures were shoved onto the taxpayer, which later became a condition of the 2010 bailout programme into which it, while sleep-walking, walked this country.

This Government has always prioritised reducing the cost to the taxpayer of Fianna Fáil's failed bailout. In 2012, the Minister for Finance replaced Fianna Fáil's relationship framework, which is now considerably more intrusive, to allow for complete transparency. It is this transparency that would have avoided the billions lost to our economy at the hands of the Fianna Fáil-led Government. Let that not be forgotten.

Nobody in this House has forgotten nor has anyone outside it. This Private Members' motion comes with comes with an unpleasant odour of irony by Fianna Fáil, given its track record of dealing with our banks. We all know that this motion is nothing more than a cheap attempt by Fianna Fáil to gain some or any political momentum, given its continuous becalming in the polls. What Fianna Fáil members do not realise is that the electorate is far more sophisticated today than was the case prior to the crash in 2010 and 2011. The constant reminder of that legacy for this generation sits in the corner of all our wage slips, the dreaded USC, a constant reminder of the taxpayers' money that Fianna Fáil robbed from every single working person in this country in order to pay for the bailout which Fianna Fáil said at the time would be the smallest, cheapest bailout. That seriously backfired.

In 2011 this Government pledged to wind down Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. This is currently under way in a way which will strengthen our economy and safeguard us from any future crises. I support fully the Minister for Finance's appointment of the IBRC special liquidators to review and report on all transactions, activities and management decisions in a very timely manner. I further welcome his appointment of retired High Court judge, Mr. Justice O'Neill, to monitor the review. I refer to the person whom Fianna Fáil chose to put in charge of the winding down of IBRC. Given his legacy of putting the country before his party and because of his integrity, there will be nothing to see when this report is issued in August.

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