Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

There was one proposal Senator Twomey made I would recommend the Minister of State bring to the Minister for Finance, which was to double the tax relief for first-time buyers. I am sure the Government will reflect on that. I thank Senator Twomey for that long-winded single proposal, with unparliamentary language to boot, which I have never heard in my seven years in this House.

I utterly reject any suggestion that this Government has done anything but act in a measured and decisive way in dealing with the international crisis. There have been five interventions over recent years. The first, to which the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, referred in his own contribution in the debate on the economy last week, was fixed contracts for infrastructural projects to increase value for money. That is something to which I will return later. We have had social partnership, involving very difficult negotiations. As I am sure Senator O'Toole will know, because he was a champion of it in the past, the success of the past 15 years was established and built on the base of social partnership. We have achieved agreement on that. We have brought forward the budget to 14 October, which is to be welcomed. Also to be welcomed is the increase in deposit protection to €100,000 which was announced last week. These four things were followed by the announcement that legislation is being prepared to guarantee banks.

This is not a reaction, as I heard on the Order of Business earlier, to any television or radio show or to suggestions from journalists. I am glad to say the officials at the Department of Finance and the Ministers in our Government have the competence to be able to act in the interests of our economy. This is not bailing out the banks; it is a set of measures that is being introduced. I appreciate that we all look forward to hearing a little more detail about its various aspects, as I am sure we will in the banking Bill which is to be introduced in the Dáil later today and presumably in the Seanad tomorrow. However, we are assured it will represent value for money to the taxpayer who, as was rightly pointed out on the Order of Business today, may be taking on an element of risk, and that it will be based on commercial terms. This does not constitute a bail-out but a transaction. The banks will pay for these guarantees, and rightly so.

I do not have any pity for banks that have presided over reckless lending, but there is no indication that banks in Ireland have involved themselves in the "ninja" lending that was common in the United States, which was completely reckless and which involved lending to people with no jobs and no capability of paying back. For the most part that has not happened here, as far as we know. Yes, there is exposure to developers, and yes, there will be losses in that regard, but I am hopeful, if not confident, that our banks are capitalised to the extent that they can sustain such losses.