Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 3d:

In page 3, before section 2, to insert the following new section:

"2.—The Minister for Finance shall make a quarterly report to both Houses of the Oireachtas on all financial institutions availing of funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund.".

This is another simple amendment. We might have to make these amendments a little simpler if the Minister of State is to accept some of them. I propose that the Minister for Finance should be required to make quarterly reports "on all financial institutions availing of funds from the National Pension Reserve Fund" available to the Houses of the Oireachtas. We cannot wait for a year. As Senators said earlier, the banks have done immense damage to the Irish economy over recent years. They could continue to do similar damage. There needs to be tight scrutiny of where taxpayers' money is invested, how much of it is invested and how it is used. We are asking the Minister for Finance, who has asked for co-operation from all sides, to respect the elected representatives of the people who sit in the Houses of the Oireachtas. This amendment deals with that, in a sense.

We would like to have a share of the information so that, like the party colleagues of the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, we can scrutinise it. If a report is laid before the Oireachtas on a quarterly basis, we will know whether damage is being done. If we find people are not behaving as the Members of the Oireachtas would like them to behave, as they use funds from the National Pensions Reserve Fund, at least we will be able to discuss such matters in a transparent manner. Like those of us who have been elected to the Oireachtas, the public was outraged when it learned of the behaviour of bankers like Mr. FitzPatrick who organised secret wheelings and dealings, loans and forms of embezzlement between financial institutions. If there had been greater transparency and more accurate reporting of what was going on, various issues would have been identified and certain problems would not have continued for as long as they did. Some of the reporting that was done in the past omitted details of the real deals and scams that were taking place. We are calling for the Minister to be required to furnish to both Houses of the Oireachtas quarterly reports on how the funds taken from the National Pensions Reserve Fund are used.