Results 2,061-2,080 of 16,537 for speaker:Brian Lenihan Jnr

Written Answers — Capital Expenditure Programmes: Capital Expenditure Programmes (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: The Government published Infrastructure Investment Priorities for 2010-2016 last July to show how it will focus capital expenditure on those programmes and projects most appropriate to our current economic circumstances. The priority will be to invest in infrastructure which helps to grow the economy and restore competitiveness, drive the smart economy, support employment, enhance...

Written Answers — National Pensions Reserve Fund: National Pensions Reserve Fund (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: I announced, during the debate on the Investment of the National Pensions Reserve Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2009 last March, that the preparation of the draft legislation provided an opportunity to consider once again the position regarding ethical investment of the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) and that I would establish an Interdepartmental Committee to examine the...

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: I put on the record of the House already this evening the views of Professor Honohan on the original guarantee and Deputy Rabbitte quoted from an article in an academic journal written by Professor Honohan in this regard. All I can say is that the concerns he had expressed in that article did not materialise in respect of the more extended coverage for the taxpayer. In his more recent...

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——and our State's problems. The Deputy is not engaging in any realistic way with the real problems——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——which the Government has to grapple with and with which any Government which replaces it will have to grapple. Deputy Burton will have to address these issues sooner or later if she finds herself in government, and she will have to resile from the entire line of rhetoric in which she has engaged in the past two years or not bother to occupy the position of Minister for Finance.

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: That is the position that faces her if she has a genuine ambition to be in government and to provide leadership in the country at a time of very great difficulty. It is all too easy to take the line of rhetoric she has taken on the banks. I appreciate very well from public opinion that banks are not loved institutions but we need credit institutions to support an economy. Without them——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: We in the House are all well aware of that but if we decide to collapse these institutions it will not be a matter of not providing some or limited credit, it will be a matter of not providing credit at all. If that is the outcome the Deputy wants, and if the Deputy wants to create an Icelandic-type crisis she should be open and admit it. The reality of this position is that the Government...

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——from successive governors of the Central Bank. In Iceland, the economic contraction continues at a very sharp level——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——far greater than any contraction we have seen here, and with interest rates, as Deputy Kennedy reminds me, of 18%. Let us get real about the debate on the banking system in the country. The model we chose to deal with this was precisely the same model followed in Sweden.

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: Listen Deputy, I will not take that kind of defamatory allegation in the House about cronies.

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: I am happy to say, and I will abide by the judgment of the people in this regard, that I have always acted in the public interest and I am entirely uninfluenced by private considerations or interests in this matter. If we do not preserve a banking system here, we will not preserve an economy. If one cannot move on from that basic lesson, then I am afraid one has a long learning curve.

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: Later in the autumn.

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: Can I deal briefly with what Deputy Rabbitte just said? The guarantee of dated subordinated debt——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: I am sorry, Deputy, can I speak?

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: I would like to conclude the debate if I could and be of assistance to the House. First, on Deputy Rabbitte's point in regard to the scope of the guarantee, and Professor Whelan's extrapolations or inferences from it——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——let me be clear about one matter. Dated subordinated debt was guaranteed in relation to the two institutions that are most distressed — Irish Nationwide Building Society and Anglo Irish Bank. No dated principal sum on foot of dated subordinated debt was paid during the guarantee period, and indeed none falls due for a number of years. Hence, there is no loss to the taxpayer in...

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: Second, in relation to the unguaranteed debt which was already invested in Anglo Irish Bank at the time of the guarantee, the precise legal point is that that debt was never guaranteed. The principal of that debt did not fall due for payment during the guarantee period. Again, there was no loss to the institutions in respect of that particular guarantee because no money or principal sum was...

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: No, Deputy please. We are talking about a figure of €4 billion of debt——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: ——which arose——

Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Brian Lenihan Jnr: Really Deputy, I am trying to address the issue raised by Deputy Rabbitte and I am making the point that the Governor is very clear in his advice that those obligations should be met by those banks in due course, first because senior bond holders as a matter of law in Ireland rank equally with depositors and therefore under the relevant EU legislation and under our domestic constitutional...