Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

The question is whether we intend to clean up the banks and the regulations by putting in new people and devising stricter regulation. People are extremely concerned. They are also very upset by the golden handshakes they see and the bonuses that people have received. They do not believe this should happen. It is fuelling social unrest and giving rise to a sense of inequity and inequality. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, to the House to speak again about regulation. We did not see it in the agreement with the banks that we discussed in the House last Thursday. The belief out there is that the banks got off very lightly in the new recapitalisation agreement with the Government. It is as if the Government is afraid to touch the banks and be really strict. Apart from a couple of calls for the chairmen and chief executive officers to resign, which is right, what is happening to regulation? Why are stricter regulations, terms and conditions not coming in? Everybody is saying we must see much more regulation than we have.

While Fianna Fáil and Green Party Members have been calling for resignations of people in the banking sector there is a deeper question. Who in the Department of Finance and Government knew what about these banking deals and when?