Dan Boyle (Green Party)

It is important that we should not prejudge the debate that will take place later today. However, it is also important that the concerns raised by Members be placed on record and form the basis of the wider debate that is likely to occur this evening. To date, I have not heard anyone state that there is no risk in what is being proposed. There is an undoubted risk. However, what the Government must consider is whether that risk is acceptable and whether the policy being proposed would give rise to a lesser risk than that attaching to other policy options.

In other jurisdictions, failing financial institutions have been directly purchased or given state support. Such interventions have resulted in a direct cost to the governments involved. The taxpayers in the jurisdictions to which I refer have already incurred a liability. The Government of the United States is offering to buy up the toxic debts incurred by banks in that country. This is a debt which is probably irredeemable. Once it is paid by US taxpayers, there will be no comeback.

The approach that will be adopted, and later debated by this House, is one where the risk has been measured and the likely cost to taxpayers will be reduced as a result. There is no doubt that the situation in which we find ourselves came about as a result of both a need for more appropriate regulation and large-scale irresponsible banking practices. Members should work together to ensure that these matters be dealt with in the context of encouraging better ethics through the introduction of legislation. The debate in which we will engage later will be the first of many that will examine existing legislation, particularly that which relates to financial regulation. I look forward to the Leader being able to make time available for such debates.

It must be stressed that what is being attempted will not be without difficulty. However, even in the short term and before the passage of the legislation through both Houses of the Oireachtas, it has already had a positive effect. In such circumstances, we can be confident that we are putting in place a framework that will allow us to deal with the current difficulties, which are partly local but mostly global in nature. I look forward to an open debate on the legislation.

I thank the Members of both Houses for engaging in the general debate on this matter in a way that has not been evident in the United States — the source of most of the problems that have arisen. The debate in the Houses of Congress has been nakedly political and those involved in it have not considered the wider interests of the global economy or their country's political system. I am satisfied that our debate on the legislation will not be conducted on such terms.