Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy's party leader, the Tánaiste, says that he does not fully trust the banks not to profiteer from this situation. The Minister is not even saying that. He is asking us to look at the good stuff the Government has done elsewhere rather than at the absolute scandal whereby banks were, correctly, pressurised to offer mortgage breaks but, when people took up those mortgage breaks because of the crisis, continued to load interest upon them. These are people who cannot afford to pay. The banks have scandalously lied to the Government and to the public. They suggested they had no choice but to charge interest. When this was exposed as a falsehood and it was shown that they had a choice, the Government's answer was that, while it cannot fully trust the banks, it is not going to do anything about it. It is an utter scandal and it proves the point that banks should be in public ownership and public control and that they should be run for the interests of society rather than society being run in their interests.

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