Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What we have seen in recent days is a complete charade with banks trooping into the Department of Finance and effectively pulling the wool over everybody's eyes again. Deputy Michael McGrath is right in saying they will sleep soundly in their beds tonight. Unfortunately the thousands of people who have been affected by the banks' reprehensible treatment will not sleep soundly and their nightmare will drag on. Let us call it for what it is; we have seen institutional theft on a grand scale being perpetrated for many years with the Government standing idly by.

Why did the Government not offer a suite of measures to deal with the issue and make the decision makers in the banks personally liable for their decisions? Unfortunately in our clinics through our work as constituency public representatives we have all witnessed the havoc this has wreaked on so many people's lives. Grown people have been crying in our clinics and constituency offices because of the treatment the banks have handed down to them.

All we hear is that it is a cultural problem. It is far greater than a cultural problem. There is a serious problem with the State and the Government dealing with white-collar crime. Let us call it what it is, white collar crime. We saw the collapse of the Anglo Irish Bank trial and the complete abdication of resourcing of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. Moreover, the Central Bank does not have the proper powers.

The people want to see the Government standing up and being on their side. I compliment our spokesperson and Deputy McGuinness on their work, along with Deputy Pearse Doherty and other members of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, who brought it to the fore. It should not be necessary to bring in members of the public and for them to have to detail their experiences at an Oireachtas committee for this issue to be sorted out. We want to see it sorted out in a timely fashion. If it is not sorted out by Christmas, we will need to come back and deal with the suite of measures Deputy Michael McGrath has detailed in tonight's Private Members' motion and make bankers criminally liable and culpable for the decisions they made which have wrecked people's lives.

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