Dan Boyle (Green Party)

——which I believe should be restored. It is not something we can do in combination with the operation of this scheme because the scheme already contains a charge. We must look into the medium and long term so that the State can be recognised for the role it is playing in this instance.

The role of the two directors who will account for the public interest has also excited some comment. It is necessary that we have people involved and my preference would be that those people be directly appointed. A mechanism in this scheme allows for the financial institutions to choose from a panel. I have no doubt the panel as compiled will include people of the highest integrity and ability. It is an unfortunate arrangement, however, and perhaps it can be re-thought as the scheme evolves over the course of the two years. We may have genuflected too much in respect of the hurt feelings of the financial institutions concerned. As an Oireachtas we should be prepared to say that they must take or leave the proposals of the scheme.

I hope those who will be on that panel and appointed to the institutions concerned will be given every support from the Oireachtas in their important role. There is an expectation that their role has something to do with demanding heads inside the financial institutions and controlling pay. That is not the role of the State. Why have we not seen this attitude among those directly responsible, the shareholders? The actual value of many of the financial institutions has crumbled in a phenomenal way over the past year or so and yet we do not hear calls for emergency general meetings or for resignations from the people who own the companies. It is not our role to do that but, in the nature and content of this debate, we are sending out a clear message that we, as public representatives, do not have confidence in way many of those people have performed. I hope the passage of this scheme will send out a further message.

Ultimately, we should be aware that in availing of this scheme, the strongest protection measure for the Irish taxpayer is the reverse guarantee that the financial institutions must give. In availing of the guarantee to the extent that they do so, the banks must recoup the cost of that guarantee. That is qualitatively different from the approach followed in the United States and in the United Kingdom, where money has been, in the short term, poured down a black hole.

We may see further evolution of the scheme in the next two years and we might even adopt the approach that seems to have been so successful in Sweden. There the State intervened in the case of a number of banks and subsequently privatised them and made a huge profit on behalf of the Swedish taxpayers. We are not anywhere near that now because our public finances are in the state they are and to get into a recapitalisation situation we would have to borrow. In borrowing we would add to our current budget deficit and national debt and compromise our ability to borrow for other areas such as infrastructure and, unfortunately, meeting our current expenditure.

I believe, therefore, the approach which has been followed and largely accepted and adopted by many of our European Union fellow member states is essentially the correct one. I accept that reservations exist in terms of strengthening this scheme and I believe these are being heard and will be part of the evolution of the scheme on an ongoing basis. I also have a sense that it remains the concerted feeling of Members of both Houses that this scheme is necessary and that it is good. A message must go out that it is supported by the political system in order that we may face these extraordinary times in our financial services and in the economy.