Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Unfortunately, we have all listened to such stories, as have the Ministers. If they had any heart, they would have dealt with this long ago. The Minister announced today what he is going to do and not do. I hope he had a nice time with the bankers and with all the sweet cake he had in the last couple of days. I said yesterday that bank robbers at one time used to come in with guns to rob the banks, and we had Securicor delivering money and it was often attacked, shamefully. Now, the robbers are inside, deep in the caverns, inside in the boardrooms. Our public interest directors are a total waste of space and time. I asked the question of the Minister's predecessor and he would not tell me what their role was. They have no role, only rubbing fat butter into the sow's you know what. That is what they are doing with the banks - tickling them.

In 2008 and 2009 Mr. Jerry Beades of Friends of Banking Ireland and other colleagues came to the finance committee and told it what was going on. Who was sitting on the committee at that time? It was the current Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar. However, he stands up here now with a frenzy of despair and crossness, and showing a little bit of anger about what is happening. He knew about it. Deputy Noonan knew about it. They all knew about it but they let it go on and they turned a blind eye until it was exposed.

We hear of the staff being bullied, in particular the ones who had tracker mortgages. It is disgraceful intimidation, racketeering, call it what you like. The regulator should have been sacked and should have paid back his pension but he walked off. The present regulator is doing nothing. The Central Bank is totally inept and uncaring. In the whole system, there is no regulation to cover banking. We all know that.

There is also what is going on down in the courts in regard to the level of repossessions. There is the whole army of receivers and thugs who go out and terrorise people, tearing up their homes due to court orders granted by county registrars who have no role to play, given they are not judges. The genie is out of the bottle. The Ministers have been found out. They should hang their heads in shame. What is being perpetrated on the Irish people is a form of genocide. It is financial terrorism, as Deputy Harty said. It is terrorism, getting phone calls at all hours of the night, like the man Deputy Healy-Rae mentioned, getting threatening letters, intimidation, getting the cold shoulder-----

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