John Carty (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister for Finance to the House and commend him on the wonderful work he has done over the past 15 months. He has worked hard on this issue and the establishment of an agency such as NAMA is the only way to resolve it.

I welcome the proposed amendment on a windfall tax on rezoning. Lending to small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, is also important. The Minister introduced an amendment on Report Stage in the Lower House to give powers to issue guidelines to participating institutions on lending practices and procedures to improve the flow of credit to SMEs. This is vital because many SMEs are under tremendous pressure but are not getting any support from the banking institutions.

However, I do not agree with the Minister's claim that the banks are in the best position to make commercial decisions in this regard. Had they been, we would not be in the trouble we are today. Many of these decisions were taken away from the local bank managers. Businesses looking for bank loans were referred up the line to plush offices in Galway, Dublin and Cork. They went in with plans prepared, sometimes by someone outside of the country, and projections. While these may have looked great on paper, they were not what they should have been. The local bank manager had no input into deciding loans for these plans but he or she would have known what the small town could take. For example, the local bank manager would have known a town could not take a development of 3,000 houses. I have no great faith in the higher echelons of banking anyway.

When I was a Member in the Lower House, I recall two gentlemen visiting my office who were buying a property to build 1,400 houses and had another project with which they thought I could help. I refused to do so point blank which they did not appreciate. When they were leaving my office, I asked them where was the common sense when Ireland was building as many housing units as they were in Britain with 15 times our population. They looked at me as if I had two heads. I know they did not vote for me in the last general election but every time I meet them now they salute me with a smile. That is because they did not get what they wanted and were lucky they did not.

Will the Minister examine and monitor the issue of negative equity for young home owners? Interest rates will go up as sure as night follows day. Many of these young people will be in extreme trouble then. Some have lost or may lose their jobs. Some measures will have to be introduced for them or we will be introducing legislation to save them because the banks will repossess them.

I compliment the Minister on the amount of work and time he has devoted to this legislation.