Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

I very much welcome the Tánaiste's announcement last Tuesday evening of her intention to bring forward legislation to amend the Companies Acts to increase the powers and resources of the Office of the Director Corporate Enforcement, especially in regard to transparency, loans to directors and powers to enforce compliance. Unfortunately, the legislation will not have the scope to deal with bodies other than limited companies, including building societies and other credit institutions such as credit unions and so on. Apparently, she indicated through a spokesperson that she intends to close that loophole.

In view of the appalling allegations involving Irish Life & Permanent, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide, which is not a company but a building society, we can afford no longer to leave such a large section of our financial sector free from investigation and cross checks. As we know, many transactions between institutions took place which need to be investigated. I ask that No. 13 on the Order Paper, the Credit Institutions (Financial Support)(Amendment) Bill 2009, which we put forward, be taken in Government time because the situation is quite urgent.

The EU 8th Company Law Directive, which relates to the quality assurance of auditors dealing with public entities such as large public companies, was meant to be transposed into Irish law by mid-2008. The recommendation is that it should be a matter for the supervisory authority, the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority in our case, and not the professional bodies of the auditors, some of whom are the subject matter of complaints which remain to be dealt with. We are seriously out of line with EU and international best practice and it is a shame we have not dealt with that matter. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is clearly dragging its feet in the matter.

I refer to the two main banks. We have seen the part recapitalisation of one of the banks and the other is to follow. The guarantee scheme was very necessary but we all know something more is needed. There is much debate about a State assets management company to deal with the banks' problem property loans. We all would agree such an initiative is very necessary. It is a variation of the so-called bad banks scheme.