Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State. Listening to these debates, I sometimes wonder if I am living in the same world all the time, or if people change so much. What brings politics most into disrepute is when people shoot from the hip with knee-jerk responses to the issue of the day in a manner completely at odds with all they have been saying on the issue for the previous six years.

There was a debate recently in this House on compliance and compliance statements. I fought for three hours against both sides of the House to get support in the IASA Bill in order that a director's compliance statement would require directors of companies to sign off on the statement that their companies are compliant with all the rules and regulations. I could not get agreement. That Bill eventually had to be changed in order to satisfy people on both sides of the House who talked of what an unfair burden this was putting on company directors. One man asked how they could possibly be held responsible in such situations.

Senator Leyden is no longer in the House, but I hope that regarding all I have heard since this debate began, and the strong line promised, I will see the same again. The Minister of State said the IFSRA Bill coming through the Houses will give the IFSRA authority to require compliance statements from directors and that it may also require auditors to sign off on them. There should be no "may" about it. It should be an absolute essential. That is the reality of the matter, though we have heard much nonsense about it. There will always be people to do things wrongly, to take shortcuts and to rip us off. In a well-run pub I would be ripped off by more in one night than by means of this 0.5% or 1% nonsense that we have been hearing of for the past two months. Charlie Bird makes a big issue of this, and it is a big issue. I am not making light of it, yet it is very small in the light of some other issues we are considering.

I want to ask the banks some questions. Why, 15 years after the Cecchini report, which the Cathaoirleach dealt with in his other life when we were opening the Common Market, does it take five to six weeks to get a personal cheque cleared in Europe? Why is there no cheque clearing system in Europe? Why is it that we are restricted to buying a credit card service in the country of residence? Why can I not get a credit card in Brussels and use it in Ireland? I would like to see legislation allowing that. I can use my Irish credit card in Brussels, and pay dearly for it.

I agree with the points made by Senator Cox about the purposes of the financial institutions. They are in the business for the money. I am not surprised at that. They are not providing a social service, do not want to do so and are not paid to do so. What annoys me in all this legislation is that we penalise institutions. That is a joke. We penalise the AIB shareholders for something wrong done by its directors. The directors do not suffer even the loss of a shilling. If the institution is fined, it does not matter to the directors. The individuals responsible should be fined. We are finally confronting this issue in the proposed legislation, so that in some situations we may penalise the individuals. That is how it should be.

I ask Senator Cox to consider the following. Nobody on the other side of the House supports the maintenance of mutualisation in large financial institutions. The Minister would confirm this if he were here. Regular representation is made to him to allow building societies and other institutions to be sold off, to allow carpet-baggers receive a few thousand euro, with the company then owned by the shareholders. People then ask why they are in it for the profit. The EBS will be the only large mutual company left. There is no debate in this House as to the impact that makes. It is the core of the point that Senator Cox made about whether companies are in business as mutual societies to do good for the customers, or to make a profit by selling it off. When the next largest building society is about to be sold off in the next six months to the shareholders, there will be cheers and support. Nobody will care. Up until now such institutions have been working for people buying houses and trying to get houses built, which is why building societies were initially established. Nobody cares about that. It is all about the quick profit.

The Minister of State will not believe what I am about to say. I am glad he is sitting down to hear it. This morning, a Member on the other side of the House stood up on the Order of Business and complained about telephone charges. In fairness, he was not here when we had this big debate eight or nine years ago. We said the selling off and privatisation of Eircom would not reduce prices; it was never meant to do so. We are now worried about broadband. I assure Members that if Eircom was still owned by the State, we would have broadband in every house in Ireland if there was a copper wire going into someone's telephone pole. That will not happen now because Eircom is in business simply to make a profit. That is an issue at which we should look.

There is another issue at which I would look and which is much more important than the0.5%. Members should go into a branch of any bank and look at the cost of foreign exchange. How many speakers today have checked the cost of sending currency within the European Union? There are three price ranges for sending money from an Irish bank to a bank anywhere else in the European Union. The price to send money which will get there in its own time is quite cheap. One is not given a date as to when it might go through. There is another price of over €30 to send money by the close of business and there is an in between price which will get money there in two days. If one writes a cheque, one has no notion how long it will take to clear — it could take five or six weeks. The bank has our money for three days and it is working for it morning, noon and night. Money being transferred apparently goes nowhere after 5 p.m. in the evening and goes nowhere on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The banks are making money out of it. That is a legislative issue and there is no reason we should be tied in to such situations.

Senator Leyden and other speakers referred to the shared home investment plan, SHIP. It is a fine idea for some people who have many assets but no money, or plenty of equity but no shillings. If they are properly guided and advised, it can be of great help to them in improving the quality of their lives.

It seems there is no free market in such areas. My argument with the market is always that whenever it might do us any good, it is never free. The credit card issue raised by Senator Cox is the classic example. Why can someone living in Europe not get a credit card anywhere in Europe? There is no reason they should not be able to do so. We are living in the same euro zone and so on. These are the issues on which there should be legislation.

Senator Ross referred to the banks. What level of investment does Bank of Ireland Finance, Bank of Ireland Asset Management or Bank of Ireland funds have in AIB? I would say we would fall down if we saw the amount and that we would have much counting to do. I would say if we counted €1,000 per minute, we would be a long time counting the amount of money Bank of Ireland has invested in AIB. The reason it invests in AIB is that there is no competition and Senator Ross is absolutely right in that regard. We need to move on. At the same time it is not about knee-jerk reactions to the 0.5%, sticking the knife in the bank, hitting it hard and dealing with it as harshly as possible because it deserves it. We also need to know the people who are responsible.

Let us remind ourselves of the hearings of the Committee of Public Accounts a number of years ago which the directors of AIB attended. As the Minister of State's party leader has said time and again, she was told they did not know it was going on in their company. Their internal auditor had brought matters to their attention but they took no notice of them. Reporting within that financial institution is weak, flawed and has failed. It is not a matter of having an investigation to find out the level at which the information stopped. The real question is, why did the people at the top not have structures in place to ensure they got the information. That is what needs to happen.

As regards looking at the whole question of banking, we should begin by discussing foreign transactions and not only the 0.5%. Let us look at the whole area because what will happen is that next time there is a scandal, we will discuss another aspect. Nobody cares about it. There is no media coverage. This scandal has passed already. There were only four or five speakers today. If this debate had been held one week ago, speakers would have been queuing up outside the door and they would have been looking for extra time. That is the reality. I would like to see how we will deal with these compliance issues.

Each time the Government brings in a new regulation, a new burden of responsibility in terms of reportage or a commitment of compliance, there is a line up of speakers in this and the other House to oppose it. Members should cast their minds back to the recent debate on the personal injuries assessment board. We were doing what every politician I had heard speak about it for four years wanted, yet all it met were arguments, opposition and people asking about solicitors and the person who would not be looked after. There is no interest in getting it right until the next row takes place.

We need to look at a recently prepared Government policy document on effective regulation and on the yardstick or benchmarks for effective regulatory procedures which was not debated here. We should not have an over-regulated society. Regulation should be there, but it should be a light touch, real and honest. That is the way we should deal with compliance. What happened in the bank last week is probably happening at the moment in some other area of what some other bank is doing. We must recognise that compliance must be met. There is no point blaming the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority if we have not given it the authority and resources to do the job we require of it. What happened was unfortunate but there are worse things happening every day with which we are compliant, for example, with credit cards, to which Senator Cox referred, with foreign transactions, which I mentioned, and with a million other things, particularly the fact the bank can hold on to our money for three to seven days.

I spoke to somebody recently who transferred money on the Wednesday before Easter. It was only lodged in the bank to which he was sending it the following Wednesday. The bank said Good Friday was a bank holiday, Saturday was a dead day, nobody worked on a Sunday and the Monday was a bank holiday and nobody worked. When asked where the money was for those four or five days, the bank gave no answer. The bank reopened on the Tuesday and the money finally got there on the Wednesday. It took one week for the money to get there in this day and age when one can press a button and transfer any amount of money from one account to another as a result of computerisation. It is time these people were asked the really hard questions and not about 0.5%, but about the level of service they are giving, the costs they are charging and the real rip off that is going on.