Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Chomh maith leis an Seanadóir Norris, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis an ceannaire sa suíochán anocht fá choinne síneadh ama a thabhairt dúinn ar an díospóireacht seo. Is ceann de na hábhair is tábhachtaí é a tháinig os ár gcomhair sa tír seo. Is ábhar é atá i mbéal an phobail ar fad, an dóigh atá na bancanna ag láimhseáil iad féin le blianta anuas.

I thank the Acting Leader for extending tonight's debate because it is a hugely important one. I will support the motion tabled by the Fine Gael Party.

Senator MacSharry is right. The Government is taking baby steps in every direction. He is correct; the Government is all over the place on this issue. It does not know if it is coming or going. What is going on is laughable but, unfortunately, it is far too serious to be laughing about it. The Government does not know what to do. We know the ground is changing all the time but the Government needs to take decisive action and it needs to show leadership. This type of hokey pokey dance the Government is doing around the future of the banking and financial system, and of this country, is not good enough. We are losing credibility internationally and people are suffering as a result.

It has been five months since the Government, the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator had in their possession the PricewaterhouseCoopers report and it was only yesterday that the Garda raids took place on the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank. That begs a serious question. Does the Minister really believe that the incriminating evidence will still be there five months after the report was in the Government's hands and many months after the dirty deeds were done? Everybody on this side of the House knew Anglo Irish Bank was rotten to the core. At the time of its nationalisation we said the bank was poison but nobody could believe the extent of the corruption that was endemic in that institution. What the Minister and his colleagues asked us to do in January was to nationalise a bank that had given €800 million to six customers, was involved in a €6 billion transfer with Irish Life & Permanent and had given out €180 million in loans to its directors. The report said the bank had large exposures. There was a duty on the Government to tell the public about the toxic debts before asking the taxpayer to take on the burden.

Last Saturday 120,000 people marched on the streets of the capital because of what they perceive as a gross injustice in the Government making lower paid workers pay for the mistakes of the Minister's party and of bankers. It has been said time and again and everybody knows it, that we are all willing to accept our share of the pain, but the fact is the Government is letting the banks and their executives away with embezzlement and fraud.

The time has come for action. That means taking bold steps. We called yesterday for the freezing of the accounts of senior executives such as Mr. FitzPatrick and others who have been involved in the fraud that has been exposed over many months. We must start to ensure banks lend to people. The Government must take control of banks such as Bank of Ireland and AIB and do something that is positive and stop allowing the drip feed of negativity regarding what is happening in the banking sector to come out as it is damaging our credibility internationally.