Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin has been proposing this legislation since 2019. We welcome that the Government is finally moving on it. It is long past time for white-collar crime to be dealt with by the law and treated as what it is. It is not a victimless crime. Those who suffered during the financial crash will say that. I am still dealing with families who were affected by that financial crash. There was news today that the Central Bank will increase mortgage-to-income ratios and reduce the deposits required for second-time buyers, which is yet another indication of just how badly this Government has failed with housing. Unfortunately, once again, we see measures that will only be inflammatory. Experts are already telling us that this will drive up house prices. People cannot afford to pay more. They need their Government to step in to build truly affordable homes. The Government is thankfully backtracking on the ban on evictions. It is missing housing targets every year. We have the highest number of homeless people ever. We now have a case study on why market-led home delivery is not just a bad idea, but a disaster.

The Central Bank rules were introduced in the fallout of the crash to prevent it from happening again. The reality is that the crash could happen again and again because no one paid for the bad financial decisions that got us here.

At that time, we bailed out the banks but not the people. We had a Fine Gael Deputy in here yesterday using dehumanising labels to describe people in addiction. He refused to withdraw that comment. He has been a Deputy for 20 years and has only referred to the bank bailout once. We are faced with the reality that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies are more concerned with labelling vulnerable people than with holding those in power to account.

The root cause of addiction is poverty. That has been shown through research. Yet instead of tackling poverty this Government is too busy subsidising developers, speculators and the banks. The people feel the Government let the bankers away with daylight robbery in the last financial crash. Thankfully, this Bill goes to address some of the issues. It tackles concerns on white-collar crime and that is welcome. We need a financial banking sector for the people and that is why the Government needs to do more with An Post and credit unions to ensure that ordinary people have access to banking. That is about banking for people and not for major profits.

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