Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister for Finance to the House to discuss this very important and topical issue. The Minister cannot be completely satisfied with the conduct of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority given its neglect in exposing the rip-off by AIB of approximately €25 million, which has been lodged with the Central Bank. It could be more than that, yet the very well paid officials of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority did not detect it. If I were responsible for that organisation I would question my own position. It is meant to be a regulatory authority but it failed to detect something that had been going on for eight years. Although it has not been in existence for eight years, its first action on being set up should have been to find out all the rates and costs and to check on what was approved by the Central Bank. That seems a basic requirement. I am quite surprised at the lack of detection. This might not have been detected were it not for a whistleblower reporting it to RTE whose chief news correspondent, Mr. Charlie Bird, efficiently and actively took up the case and took on the role of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

I understand approximately 10% will be untraceable because it relates to small investments prior to the introduction of the euro and involved cheques and different exchange rates. It would be impossible to trace. I stated here some weeks ago that in the circumstances the Minister should hammer the point home to the AIB. As a long-time customer of AIB I have always found it an excellent bank. The staff at local branch level are certainly not responsible but it seems they must pay for these mistakes. Given the upcoming People in Need Telethon television extravaganza on Friday, 21 May, it would be an excellent gesture if the €2.5 million that is owing to small investors throughout the country who cannot be traced, were donated to try to rescue at least some of the PR losses that have been incurred. The whistleblower has done the country some service in this regard, given of the length of time this was going on.

This is not the first time AIB has been in difficulty. The Minister will recall the Government having to rescue the situation regarding the Insurance Corporation of Ireland when he and I were Deputies. The Government should have taken equity in AIB at that time because it has never repaid the Government. It was an extraordinary debacle and scandal caused by abuse of the system. The risks against which insurance was taken out were unreal. Tornadoes and other types of risk that nobody else would touch were insured against and people made a lot of money out of the situation. Many people acted fraudulently in their work.

The Bank of Ireland does not have a great record either. Some $700 million was lost in the First Bank of Maryland and, again, no heads rolled. If a Minister were responsible for a loss of $700 million he or she would not remain very long in his or her job.