Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The cost of the tracker mortgage scandal, between compensation and the cost to the banks in fines, was €1 billion. I understand the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, is speaking to an official but I would appreciate it if he were to listen when I am speaking to him. I just mentioned that €1 billion was the cost of the tracker mortgage scandal and the Minister of State went across the floor to speak to his official while I was speaking. Please do me the courtesy of listening to me. I was speaking about €1 billion and the Minister of State disappeared to speak to his official. Do me the courtesy of listening to me when I am talking. The cost of the tracker mortgage scandal, between compensation and the cost to the banks in fines, was €1 billion. The intention of the Bill is to change the culture across firms and ensure that individuals will no longer be able to evade personal responsibility for the conduct of the companies they run.

It is well documented that the banking crisis cost €5.4 billion, yet Irish Nationwide was only fined €23,000. That is likely to continue under the Bill. I could go on all day long about what the banking crisis has done to families and farm owners. A case in the High Court last year involved the banks having sold on the debt from farm to a third party but the law states that one cannot sell on land as a third party debt. One can sell on a property, such as a house or a business property, but one cannot sell on third party land. The banks continued with that practice, however, and accrued more fines in the courts, and pushed farmers to the pin of their collar even though the banks are not supposed to be able to do it. That is the farmers.

Then we go to business owners. They were scraping to survive through hard times. At one stage, banks were ringing people and trying to hand them money. They were telling people they could borrow more. The second that there was any bit of a slowdown, however, they closed the doors on everyone and took everything out from underneath business owners and bullied their way through and took back properties. They pushed families that were trying to pay for their homes out of them. They demanded full repayment and refused to meet with lenders. They told homeowners that they wanted the full amount or they would take back the house.

The banks then dealt with multinationals that were buying hundreds of houses. They put them together in a package and sold them off to the banks. The banks sold them off for peanuts even though the people who were going to repay those loans would have repaid more in the long term if the banks had stuck with them. The bail-out of the banks in this country was a scandal. The people of this country were there to back the banks but, when the crunch came, the banks and the Government were not there to back the people. That seems to be repeating itself every time there is a new Government. Not only do the banks not back the people, now the Government does not back them.

Now we are in another crisis yet every time my colleagues and I come up with a solution, the Government lets its Departments come up with crazy ideas on how to fix things but all they do is drive inflation and put more hurt on top of people who are trying to pay their way. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. The Minister of State has been here long enough to learn that. What this Government has not learned, however, is that the Rural Independents are the only true voice of the people in this country. In spite of that, the Government has failed to listen to us. Every time it makes a mistake, it has to do a U-turn and come back to exactly what we said in the first place.

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