Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I want to support the view put forward by Senator Frances Fitzgerald that we should have an all-day debate in this House on the banking sector. We must look at the macro question as regards how dubious practices prevailed such as the artificial cooking of books as well as the transfer and withdrawal of moneys overnight. We have to look at the regulatory and auditing procedures that surrounded that. We must look at the quality of the ministerial briefings and find out what was said. At a macro level we need a full-day debate to tease out these issues.

At a more basic micro level, we need a day to debate the fact the banking sector in this country has not yet responded properly to the Government guarantee scheme. The banks never passed on the ECB interest rate reduction to consumers in a blanket fashion across the board, and that is wrong. Arbitrary charges are being applied willy-nilly and without advance notice to accounts. The banks are not giving credit to small businesses on a regular basis.