Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

We might win over the people of Ireland and they will stop referring to him as the Castle's man.

The Minister's announcement yesterday, Building Ireland's Smart Economy — A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal, has been dismissed to some degree as aspirational. The innovation fund was probably the only new aspect about which he spoke. One aspect that makes the people and ourselves cynical about all of this is the greening of the Irish economy and the provision of €30 billion over ten years. In the Lower House the Minister, replying to Labour's Deputy Burton, stated: "Deputy Burton may think €3 billion can be loosely thrown around the street like that and turned into dead money in the hands of shareholders ..." He was referring to capitalising the Irish banks because of the other crisis currently in the banking sector. How will we spend €3 billion on the greening of the Irish economy if the Minister is clearly stating that he will not waste €3 billion on nationalising the Irish banks?

Regarding the banks, the Minister must come out stronger on that issue. We must be more clear on that area. Almost 11 weeks to the day we spoke about giving every depositor in the country a guarantee to the tune of €400 billion. I stated that we should ensure we spend no more than €10 billion on recapitalising the banks. The Minister said he did not envisage having to expend €10 billion on nationalising the Irish banks but now we are talking about putting in that money — it was clear there was a need to put that amount in at that time. I know the Minister has had all the audit reports since and because he is the Minister he has to say that he must get all that information first, but there is a need for him to make some definitive statements.

In the House this morning we called for the Houses of the Oireachtas to come back earlier in January because there is a need to keep the Irish people up to date, and it is best to do that within these two Houses. The Minister attacked me on a previous occasion when I made the same comment about Lisbon. We must have those debates in this House, not in Dublin Castle. I am worried about the Minister becoming a Castle man.