Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I would not speak with the same degree of financial expertise as some of my colleagues, but I have listened with interest to what has been said. At the very core of this debate is the attitude of the banking industry to its broad base of customers, and in particular the attitude of the banking industry to small business and enterprise. It is quite a few months since we had the all night session in this House, when the Government had to intervene to take emergency action. That was generally supported, and I think the general view of the majority of Members since then has been that we recognise the need to have a sound, secure banking industry in this country. We all deem banks to be a necessary evil, but without them, we cannot have the financial resources which we need to run our economy, so it is very important that we have a sustainable banking industry.

At all levels of society, there is great disappointment among lay people that there does not seem to have been reciprocal goodwill or generosity shown by the financial industry towards citizens working in the small enterprise side of the economy. Every politician comes across shopkeepers, publicans and entrepreneurs whose future is at the gravest possible risk as a result of the lack of finance. We must recognise that there is a particular financial equation in the banking industry and that money cannot be lent left, right and centre. However, there is a serious responsibility on our banks to respond to taxpayers' generosity by being generous in their treatment of customers and in how they look at the short-term funding of small and medium sized enterprises. I know the Minister of State has often heard this in both Houses, but I do not think we can emphasise the need for the Irish banks to respond to what is being done for them.

There are different domestic and international reports doing the rounds on Government economic policy, and we are not the final adjudicators on that. Some say the Government's policy is going in the right direction, while others will be concerned about it. The one part of Government policy that is certainly a failure is the selling to the public of the message that what is being done for the banks is necessary, and that somehow the taxpayer is getting a value for money return. On virtually every current affairs chat show, the argument is being put out that the Government is bailing out the banks but that the banks are not bailing out small industry. That is a very simplistic argument, but the Minister of State has a PR battle on his hands to prove that there is an equality of response from the financial world to what is being given to that sector of society by the taxpayer. The Government will have to redouble its efforts to ensure there is generosity shown by our banks, be it to homeowners or small business people. All the banking guarantees in the world will be of no long-term advantage to this country unless we can keep our economy ticking over at the minimum, and growing in the future.

We must avail of every possible political opportunity to pressurise the banks, which have a moral responsibility now. It is disappointing to see that in some sectors of the banking industry, there is a strutting, arrogant approach to their position. They have easily forgotten where they have come from and the decisions they took which landed the Irish economy in its current mess. We must move on and recognise that we have to work with the banks in order to preserve the economy, but an admission by the banks that they got it very wrong would be a positive step in the right direction. We could do with less of their arrogance and aloofness, and a little bit more of a positive and willing attitude to work with the Government, the taxpayer and enterprise and industry to keep Ireland Limited afloat.

I appeal to the Minister of State and the Government to keep the pressure on our financial institutions to respond generously to Irish taxpayers for what they has done for them. We need a modern, functioning and viable banking industry. Without it, we all go down the tubes. As part of the quid pro quo, it is not unreasonable to expect a little bit more generosity, flexibility and understanding from the financial institutions. We were very understanding towards those institutions last autumn.