Alex White (Labour)

What is the point? I do not say we should not invite them but what is the point?

Senator O'Toole said the committee is not a Star Chamber. Nobody expects it to be a Star Chamber, but people are crying out for accountability and for questions to be answered. They are not being answered anywhere else so why can they not be answered in the Parliament of the people? If the Minister comes to this House, can it be on the basis of a real expectation that he can give answers to questions?

I recall the Minister for Finance being in the House last September, on that long dark night of the soul we experienced. I recall asking him what exactly had happened on the day the Government extended the guarantee. We never got an answer as to what happened in the room that night. Does anybody, apart from the Minister and those who were present, know what happened that night? It has never been revealed to the public. What precisely was said by the bankers and their advisers to persuade the State effectively to commit the deeds of the State, as others have described it, in a guarantee to the banks? What was the reason for this? It might have been the right thing to do, although I believe it was not and many commentators are coming around to that view. I might be wrong but we will never be able to assess that or work out who is right and who is wrong until we are told why. I mean something more than the bland statement the Minister constantly makes about the system and the worries about it, with this and that bank having systemic importance, and all of this kind of stuff that we can get through. What was said and what was going to happen if the decision was not made? As somebody asked this morning, what was said in the immediate lead-up to the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank? What was the trigger reason that it was done on the occasion when it was done?