David Norris (Independent)

I, too, support the amendment, particularly the element Senator Prendergast singled out, the issue of mortgages. I raised this issue on the Order of Business for many months before the situation became disastrous. I am concerned about it. At least, mortgage interest rates have fallen. However, we are moving towards a situation of considerable unemployment and the point made by my two colleagues about the banks is significant. The banks are being bailed out by taxpayers' money but there is still a significant number of repossessions. Over the past six months to a year I have put on record the steady increase in the number of repossession orders given by the courts in Dublin. One of the judges drew attention to this as an important and significant fact.

I will conclude by pointing to the biblical lesson in this. There is a parable in the Bible, with which the Minister will be familiar, about a man who is in debt to his master. The debt was forgiven by his master but the man was then utterly severe with somebody lower down the chain of indebtedness and insisted on his pound of flesh. The master took a grim view of that and of somebody whose debt had been forgiven being so unfeeling and callous. There is that element in the banks. They got themselves into this situation because they could not be bothered with the little people, the people who were described by an American woman, whose name I cannot recall, as the little people who pay taxes. These are the people who take out bank loans and so forth. We have all seen the way in which the banks have treated ordinary customers with indifference and went after big corporate sources, futures, derivatives, gambling on the Stock Exchange and so forth. When they got themselves into trouble, however, they had to seek money from the taxpayer. That is all I have to say in support of my two colleagues.