Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

The Minister has said the banks are best placed to make commercial decisions to allow credit. They may very well be, but they are not allowing credit to flow and therein lies the crux of the problem. They consider that their best friends are their investors and shareholders but to hell with borrowers such as small businesses or homeowners. That is not right. I am not an economist, but I will defend the right of those who are creating employment. They took risks to employ and provide a service, yet they are now being let down. That is the core of the matter. If we want to consider the holistic approach, we should take Senator Donohoe's eloquent speech as a benchmark.

In reality, we had banking regulations with no accountability. In order to move forward we must learn from the past. Never again should we have to face such a catastrophic crisis. It was like Armageddon and it is our duty to ensure there is no recurrence. Small and medium-sized enterprises, including smallholders and small employers, are the lifeblood of our society, yet they are being sucked dry. If we do nothing else in this debate, we should bring forward a plan to create and retain jobs. Senator Twomey has said we need to be strong and he is correct. That is why the Opposition has proposed a strong, determined, apolitical message about an alternative banking system which would provide a lifeline for this country.

The Minister referred to cash flow and credit which must be made available as a consequence of NAMA but I do not see it happening. Senator Ross said the Bill represented a bailout for the banks and he is not wrong. This is akin to the Minister and his ministerial colleagues going on a trip to Las Vegas to play Russian roulette and putting the whole store on number five black. If it does not come up, we are all finished. The documentary evidence from foreign experts does not support the Minister. However, we have an alternative viewpoint. Senator Ross spoke about people living in a fantasy world. Senator Donohoe spoke about economics. That is what we have in front of us. What are the current market values? What will property values be in ten years? The reality is that nobody knows. This relates to Senator O'Malley's point on property prices and market values. We are playing roulette on behalf of the people. The future prospects of the banking institutions are vested in NAMA. The taxpayer should not take a hit for the mistakes of others. That is why I fundamentally disagree, politically and ideologically, with NAMA. We are asking the taxpayer to go to the front line and prop up the banking institutions.

We discarded the French model. When France had the equivalent of NAMA in the 1990s, it was a disaster. In the United Kingdom a good bank-bad bank model has been used in respect of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. In the United States Washington Mutual has been divided into a good and a bad bank.

The Minister spoke off script and condemned the Fine Gael approach. However, we have listened and sought alternatives to NAMA. The advantage of the good bank-bad bank solution would be that the risks and responsibilities associated with working out distressed developer-related loans would remain with those professional bankers and investors that funded the loans and are best placed to recover them. The advantage of Fine Gael's proposal for a national recovery bank over the proposal for a national asset management agency is that new State funding for the banks would be directly linked with new lending into the economy. Instead of buying toxic developer loans with highly uncertain value, as under NAMA, the taxpayer would be buying higher quality loans directly linked with new jobs and economic recovery.