Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

The Minister for Finance, when he was speaking, stated that the Director of Corporate Enforcement is being assisted by the Financial Regulator who has particular powers to obtain information from financial institutions. I repeat the fact that there was no run on the bank and also, if one wishes to put it another way, that it was not insolvent. However, limited funding problems and the risk from ratings downgrades, added to corporate governance difficulties, led to a loss of confidence and to nationalisation.

I do not think Senators would want to suggest that the Government should always wait until the last possible moment before taking action. There are many appeals for leadership and decisiveness and for the Government to be ahead of the game. Senators attempted to argue that the Government should only have nationalised when it was forced to do so. I do not accept that argument.

The banks are vital to the operation of this economy, and particularly to the small and medium sized enterprises to which Senator Cassidy referred. We all have become much more conscious of this and perhaps we tended to take banks more for granted up to a few months ago. I do not believe assistance to small and medium sized enterprise is something that can be confined to one bank. It must be the function of all banks and for better or worse as a result of the situation, the Government has become much more involved in the banking sector.

I suppose I would not be the only person rubbing my eyes, notwithstanding any youthful socialist tendencies that I might have had, that I would be here presenting, on Second Stage, a Bill for the nationalisation of a bank. On the other hand, another semi-childhood or certainly juvenile impression I had was that banks were pillars of rectitude and respectability, possibly a bit too conservative for the good of society but with no problems on ethical fronts. Unfortunately, however, like so many other institutions that had unquestioning respect 30, 40 or 50 years ago, that was not always right, perhaps. What has happened is very sad. It is sad not just in terms of a fall in standards, but in terms of its consequences for the welfare of our people.

There is always in these situations a thirst for what one might call instant justice. In the French Revolution, which I studied, financiers tended to end up at the end of lampposts. There must be a process. If one is asking whether the Government knows everything there is to be known about Anglo Irish Bank, the answer——