Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

To have not acted swiftly would have led to a very serious disturbance of the economy. As other speakers have said, it would have moved out beyond the banking sector and have had a much wider economic, social and employment impact. As the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, outlined earlier, this Bill is necessary to protect the stability of credit institutions and also to maintain the stability of the financial system of the State. In order to achieve these ends, the State has provided a guarantee to six domestic financial institutions which, as the Minister of State pointed out, were not in a position to rely on the support and assistance of parent institutions.

However, it is important to point out that the same protection and underwriting was not extended to other financial institutions operating in the State. This does raise issues and questions around competition. It appears to give an advantage to those institutions to which the State has extended a protection and it also seems to raise equity issues. It is Irish citizens in the main who have their savings in institutions such as the Ulster Bank, Bank of Scotland and so on and it does not appear fair that those citizens and those institutions do not enjoy the same protection as the institutions that the State has underwritten.

An increasing number of financial and banking services operate across the borders of member states. Fortis is an example of one of these. It is obvious that the traditional model of governments acting on behalf of or in the interests of national champions in crisis situations such as this will no longer be as effective given that financial institutions are increasingly located across a number of member states and it is hard to identify where the parent institution might be based.

I ask the Minister to use his influence on the Council of Ministers to call for an EU-wide regulatory authority for financial services. This has been mentioned in recent days. It would be sensible and feasible to begin with the countries that belong to the eurozone because they have the same monetary system, the same interest rates and so on. The Minister, as an influential player in the eurozone group, will be in a position to push for the establishment for the EU regulatory authority for financial services. In time, I hope it will extend on an EU-wide basis and ultimately we will be speaking about an international system for regulating financial services. As the Minister of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh, pointed out earlier, this credit crisis originated in the United States. The saying goes that if the United States sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. We need an international system of regulation of financial services but this should begin at an EU level. I ask the Minister of State to use his influence to make sure this happens in the wake of the crisis we are now experiencing.