Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

The Bill deals with pensions, direct debit mandates, institutions, non-commercial State bodies and the National Pensions Reserve Fund. I cannot let some of the things mentioned by previous speakers go unchallenged. I heard Senator Bacik mention that we should have allowed Anglo Irish Bank to go. Every Member of the House has a responsibility to the taxpayer. We need to make decisions in the best interests of the taxpayer. Once we introduced the guarantee for bank deposits we were committed totally to the taxpayer. On that basis it would have cost the taxpayer €60 billion if we had allowed Anglo Irish Bank to go. The argument to save it is compelling. The IMF agrees that the Government is taking the correct action and that NAMA is the right vehicle to deal with non-performing debt. Of the €90 billion, some €55 billion is performing. This means that NAMA would be financially sound even with a return of 2% interest on the €55 billion. That would ensure NAMA was functioning and not costing the taxpayer. NAMA will look at an investment of between 12 and 15 years and it is reasonable to expect that land prices would have risen substantially over that period. They may not get back to exactly where they were, but they will certainly improve. Some 30% of indebtedness to this country is outside the State, including America, the United Kingdom and Europe. I think we will see an upturn in land banks coming first from America, followed by London as a key mover in terms of land. Europe will probably be third on the list. We do not have all our investment in land at home, which is a good thing. We must examine how we will manage our pension funds. Hopefully, we will deal with them through this legislation and ensure they are properly managed. I would like to see pension funds being invested more in green domestic energy projects. Energy is one of the sectors that we will be dealing with in the coming months. As an important part of the economy, it will make us more efficient and will ensure that a new industry comes on stream for energy alone. The offsprings from that sector could create over 80,000 jobs.

I commend the Bill to the House. It forms an important aspect of the corpus of legislation that has already been introduced and which we are now fine tuning. I am glad to see the insertion of a provision whereby decisions can be made on the Minister's behalf, which is vitally important.