Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

It is not just the Minister who is at a loss. The taxpayer is at a loss because of his decision. The reality is, and I asked whether his Department did any analysis of this, one of the major issues in terms of share price is the profitability of a bank or of a company.

We can see the profitability of AIB and Bank of Ireland. The bank was nationalised at a time when it was making losses and was sold privately at a time when it was making significant profits. The two banks between them made €4 billion in profit last year. We know all the reasons for that in terms of ECB interest rates and not passing that on to customers.

There is, however, a simple point. It may be one that the Minister does not want to deal with. The reality is that the share price when the Government sold its holding was just over €2. It is now €7. Does the ownership structure of the entity have an impact? Of course it does. However, I ask him not to pretend that is the reason the share value has gone from €2 to €7. There is an issue here in respect of profitability. The point is that we are at a loss as a result of hundreds of millions of euro in dividends each year. There was always an ability for us to sell but it was sold at the wrong time.

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