Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad of the opportunity to talk on this important motion. On the one hand, the sale of AIB to reduce our debt is laudable, but where does this leave the surety of a bank service for the people in rural sparsely populated areas? If the new owners decide to take banks out of rural towns, what will the people do then? They will have to travel longer journeys. The people have stood by this bank in good times and bad. Will the people, account holders, borrowers, mortgage holders and all who trade with the new owners get fair play? This is the most important aspect. The people we represent are the most important.

I believe there is not enough competition in the banking business to ensure that interest rates remain at an acceptable level. Will our farmers and small business people get loans to keep their businesses going? This move could very well suit big business and millionaires at the cost or expense of smaller operators and entrepreneurs who are trying to get going.

The sum of €3 billion is a big figure on the one hand but, if an entity or someone else can see the sense in buying AIB, surely this Government should see that the bank has started making money and that it could make money for the taxpayer also. Most importantly, we are losing control for the Irish people. We do not have enough banks to ensure competition.

I, too, would like more and better infrastructure in our country. This Government, and all the parties here, should be going back to those in Europe and telling them that we will pay them what we owe them when we have it. It should not be putting this generation under the pressure it is putting it under. Employers, sole traders and anyone going out working in the morning are being taxed too high and not getting services for it. I am asking the Government to go back with its cap in its hand to tell the Germans, who did not pay their debt following the First World War until approximately three years ago, that we will pay them when we have it. When small businesses tell us they cannot pay us this year but will pay us next year, we accept it. This is what we should be about and not selling the one bank that we have control over. It is very wrong. The Government would want to think about it again. I am asking it of Fianna Fáil as well. It is not doing right by the Irish people to sell this bank. Go back to those in Europe and tell them that we are paying too much but that we will pay them when we have it.

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