Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

If he does not know, he should know. Perhaps he does know but will not come clean. It is a worrying scenario, especially as the taxpayer has to pick up a tab of €300 million as a consequence of the nationalisation of the bank. Information about this deal was not given to the Stock Exchange. The markets did not know about the deal. It cannot be anything other than damaging.

I appeal to the Government to deal with this issue of political accountability and openness. If the information we need is not put on the table at some point, this will drag on for many months. Senators on this side of the House want the international credibility of the Irish economy to be restored. That is especially critical for job creation. Yesterday's announcement that 300 jobs are to be lost at Intel is an indication of how rapidly the situation is changing. We were told a few weeks ago that there would not be any job losses at Intel.