Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

He did not know that and he has been giving out about NAMA and the Government's policy over recent months since we introduced the concept. When one discusses the Labour Party as the alternative government along with Fine Gael, it is well to be aware that not only are its members not reading the fine print, they are not reading the big print either.

NAMA has come about because of the situation with the banks and we have to be aware that originally the Labour Party, which is led by Deputy Gilmore, did not want us to guarantee the money of deposit holders. It did not want us to introduce the legislation and voted against it. Fine Gael's policy is diametrically opposed to that of the Labour Party, which many authorities, financial observers, economists and the European Union stated would have led to us paying quite enormous sums because of our borrowing requirements from the EU and bond holders.

When we are considering leadership, Senator O'Toole has been gracious enough to acknowledge that the Government has taken enormous risks on whether we would guarantee the deposit holders. Initially it was up to €100,000 and then it was all deposits. That was a bold step criticised by many and was eventually followed by the Germans. Even though Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised us on the Tuesday she was doing it herself within a wet week.

There is precedent for how NAMA will work. It has been done in Sweden and in the United States. While we would like to extract vengeance on the developers who took out enormous loans and are now unable to pay-----