Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I thank Senator Bacik for allowing me a few minutes to speak on the Bill. I wish to quote from yesterday's IMF report which stated: "The proposed National Asset Management Agency is potentially the right mechanism to separate the good from the bad assets." The Government is right to think it is moving in the right direction because the IMF also suggested that risk sharing measures be considered on pricing bad loans so that "the taxpayer does not bear a disproportionate burden of the costs cleaning up the banks". It appears to be going in the right direction and the Government can take some credit from that.

I share Senator Bacik's concerns over a Bill with "miscellaneous provisions" in the title. The fundamental problem is that the Government now wants to extend the bank guarantee without performing any investigation into what went wrong with the banks and why. It wants to introduce measures so that such a catastrophe will never happen again. The Government seems to have no long-term strategy in this area. I accept it is taking time to introduce NAMA and perhaps it will do all that. The Government is ploughing ahead with NAMA and yet it has not had that investigation into the banks. How does that read to the international community?

In essence it seems that the banks cannot survive without some support. It may be correct that it was wrong to rescue Anglo Irish Bank. In a recent article in The Irish Times Brian Lucey pointed out the Government seems to have the European Central Bank over a barrel over the threat to the euro and as a result is counting on indefinite support for the Irish banking system. When will the Government address our banking problems head on and admit that perhaps they will need to be nationalised? I would hope that will not be necessary. However, the IMF has suggested that they may need to be nationalised for a few years. That is what I have been hearing from people with decades of real experience in banking. To those of us without the same experience it seems as if we are going all the way to 2012 with half measures so that the stigma of bank nationalisation would be avoided even though that may be the outcome we need to face up to in the end.

We need to address our banking crisis with much more vigour and implement a proper investigation into the banks. That is how we can begin to regain the necessary confidence in banking. I urge the Government to carry out that investigation and state it recognises what went wrong. If it was the fault of the Government of the time, let us admit it. However, let us ensure we regain that confidence as quickly as possible.