Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The banking crisis devastated Ireland. It affected the lives of millions of people in this State and forced hundreds of thousands of people to emigrate, many of whom have never returned. People who left due to the collateral damage of the banking crisis are living in Canada, Australia and all over the world. It loaded tens of billions of euro of debt onto this country and significantly reduced the level of investment in Irish society for a decade afterwards. We have less money to invest in housing, infrastructure, health and education as a result of the damage done by the banking crisis. The infrastructure deficit we experience as we travel to and from work, etc., is a result of the millions of euro that were spent paying off debt rather than being invested in this country. Every single man, woman and child in this State owes €47,000, which is a massive burden for individuals to have on their shoulders, especially in this time of economic crisis.

The shadow of the banking crisis reaches into the lives of people in today's world. The banking crisis was fuelled by years of light touch regulation, credit illiteracy among the Fianna Fáil Governments of the day and the bargain basement European interest rates available during the period. Of course, the European Union sets its interest rates on the basis of the larger economies such as Germany and does not pay any heed to the needs of the Irish economy. Before the banking crisis, we needed higher interest rates to cool down the housing market. Subsequently, the damage was magnified by a Fianna Fáil Government and the European Union, which saddled the people with the costs of the crisis. Greed, the absence of oversight from the administrations in Dublin or Brussels and the refusal to protect the Irish people when they needed it have cost us massively, right up to the current generation.

In the middle of all the human carnage that was caused, Ireland managed to maintain its impeccable record of never holding anybody to account. It was an amazing feat. To think that such a disaster could have been wreaked on every single household and practically every business in the country and is now being experienced in hospital wards, schoolrooms, creaking road infrastructure, etc., and nobody was held to account. This contrasts with what we saw in other countries such as Iceland and the United States where the architects of the damage were brought to account at some level.

While this Bill is welcome, it is 14 years late. That is the unfortunate, costly reality for many people’s lives. That it is before the House is welcome and many aspects of the legislation will lead to significant improvements in oversight, including the provisions to ensure individuals in these institutions fulfil their responsibilities properly and cannot be involved in practices that will be dangerous and costly to the companies in question and society. It provides for an ability to investigate properly and enforce decisions from those investigations. I welcome all those aspects of the Bill.

The Bill seeks to give significant regulation powers to the Central Bank to implement the individual accountability framework in respect of senior executives in regulated financial service providers. There is much in this Bill and good work in it. I wanted to mention those positive elements to the Government, the public service and the Central Bank. However, I am concerned about a couple of aspects of the legislation, although I stand to be corrected if I am not accurate. While there is no doubt the Central Bank is a repository of considerable expertise, this Bill feels like we are leaving much of the detail to be filled in by the Central Bank. In other words, we are giving a canvas that has a rough sketch of how this should exist in the future but asking others to fill it in. As the elected representatives of the people, we are ultimately responsible. We have a history of outsourcing responsibility to others. When we do that we lose control of that responsibility and oftentimes the result is not what it should be.

If the detail was filled in here, we would, with the advice of the Central Bank and financial and economic experts, be able to go over every aspect of this Bill to make sure it is robust enough to ensure that if we hit another crash in the future, the systems are in place to deal with it. I worry that there are gaps in this and that we are outsourcing it. I believe that is wrong.

I will raise a couple of elements. Will the Minister of State address the role of the High Court regarding decisions that have been made and any enforcement or penalties that are decided on? Does the role of the High Court mean that we will see litigation? One problem that we regularly discuss here with regard to commissions of inquiry is that they nearly get tied up for decades in litigation. The level of defence that is used costs the State and individuals significant amounts. It means that justice is kicked down the road by as long as 14 years. Justice denied for that long is no justice at all, truth be told. How will the oversight of the High Court work in real terms? I understand the High Court has to confirm decisions. I understand that citizens have rights under the Constitution which cannot be impugned unfairly. Will the Minister of State address that in his responses?

Enforcement is an important element in Irish society. We are heavy with legislation but light with enforcement in many areas, whether employment law, environmental issues or taxation. There is no proper enforcement. We can produce this wonderful Bill, but if the enforcement is not right, we will have a difficulty. This Bill seems to outsource that enforcement to the Central Bank. Section 48 of the Bill provides:

In determining under section 33AQ or 33AR whether to impose a sanction on a natural person, what sanction to impose on a natural person, or the level of any monetary penalty to be imposed on a natural person, the Bank shall have regard, together with any other relevant considerations, to any of the following that appear to it to be relevant.

This critical element appears not to have crystallised in the Bill. We will not have an effect on that critical element. We will not own it. We will not be able to design it. Therefore, it is in somebody else's hands. I feel that is a weakness.

We have another banking crisis on our hands in this country which leads from the previous banking crisis. It is the overconcentration of the market in the hands of just a few banks. This has not happened by accident. Michael Noonan designed the two-pillar bank system. He basically designed an oligopoly. Anybody with any understanding of economics knows that concentrated oligopolies such as this do not work for the good of the people. They have enormous power and can have influence over every aspect of engagement with the customer, whether it is on the price of the interest rate, the cost of handling cash, or retreating from towns and villages across the country with bank closures. In all of those aspects, the power lies with the banks rather than the people. If there is a far more fractured market, which is called a perfect competition market, with smaller banks, it means that more power and influence over those aspects of engagement is in the hands of the consumer. That is one reason banks are moving towards digitisation of all of this. It also means that smaller banks are finding it hard to compete effectively and profitably with larger banks because they have such small elements of the market.

I have no doubt that a focus on changing the market structure of the banking system in Ireland is needed. It is a pity that the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has left the building. One way to do this is through a public banking system. It seems that every party, including the Minister of State's party, Fianna Fáil, is in favour of a public banking system, bar one. It seems that Fine Gael is the only political party that is building a barrier to the development of a public banking system. I want to find out why that is the case from Fine Gael. Why is a stakeholder public banking system, which operates successfully in other mature, well-functioning economies, deemed to be a threat in Ireland, given the overly concentrated market here? Stakeholder banking systems tend to have a more regional focus. They tend to be oriented more towards small businesses and small farmers. They tend to make sure that profits are pushed back into the sectors in which they are operating. They tend to be far more resilient. The German experience is that when the last banking crash happened, the public banking system was far less likely to suffer a significant loss. It is mind-boggling, given the overconcentration in the banking system, the flight of so many banks from the country and the alternative opportunity that public banking represents, that Fine Gael is so against it. It is probably why Fianna Fáil has not managed to lever Fine Gael into making a positive decision. Some might say that Fianna Fáil has done that with the ban of evictions over the winter. Why is there weakness with regard to the public banking system?

Sula gcríochnóidh mé, caithfidh mé a rá go bhfáiltím roimh an mBille seo. Is Bille tábhachtach é gan dabht. Ba cheart go mbeadh oversight ag an mBanc Ceannais ar na comhlachtaí airgeadais atá ag obair timpeall na tíre. Is léir gan an oversight sin go mbeidh contúirt mhór fós ann, an chontúirt go dtitfidh an tír go hiomlán as a chéile mar a tharla leis an ngéarchéim bhainc 12 bliain ó shin. Cuirim fáilte go hiomlán roimh an mBille seo.

Tá cúpla ceist agam. Táim buartha faoi chúpla rud. Ba mhaith liom go mbeadh an Rialtas sásta freagra a thabhairt faoi na rudaí seo. Conas a bheidh an Ard-Chúirt in ann na cinniúintí a chur i bhfeidhm go tapa gan costas mór ar dhaoine agus an Stát sa todhchaí, ionas nach gcuirfimid go leor cumhacht chuig an mBanc Ceannais chun na bearnaí a líonadh mar gheall ar na cumhachtaí nach bhfuil istigh sa Bhille? Ba mhaith liom dá mbeadh an Rialtas sásta na ceisteanna sin a fhreagairt.

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