Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senators for their wide-ranging and informative contributions on this debate. It has been a very interesting debate and I was glad to follow closely a number of contributors and have had a full report of what others said.

Senator O'Reilly suggested we were acting in the face of all evidence. I would like to eliminate certain countries from our debate before I deal with the merits of NAMA. First, I am concerned that there was much talk within the Fine Gael interest about Japan. Let us be clear about what happened in Japan. It spent 19 years in an economic decline. The reason it spent that length of time in economic decline was that it refused to establish an asset management agency. Instead, the Japanese trusted the banks and gave them the upper hand and every time the banks reported a loss, they put more public money into the banks. That is the policy of capitalisation only and it was the policy followed in Japan, followed because the authorities there consistently refused to accept there was a drop in the value of the properties. Therefore, let us leave Japan out of this debate because it does not prove anything other than the Government is right. The reason we cite the IMF so often is that it has been saying all year that the correct way to deal with a troubled distressed bank position is to set up an asset relief agency. We can all argue about the details in this and the other House, and that is only right, but let us leave Japan out of the debate.

Several Fine Gael Senators brought a second country into the debate, namely, France and one of its banks, Crédit Lyonnais, which makes them sound impressive. However, let us examine what the French Government did in that case. It decided to buy the book debts of Crédit Lyonnais at 100% and paid the full face value of the loans. We are not doing that. The French Government paid 100%. Therefore, it is not surprising that the French asset relief scheme did not work out very well having decided the state should pay the face value of the loans. Let us, therefore, leave France out of the debate also. Whatever other arguments we have, let us leave Japan and France out of them.

The introduction of these issues by the Fine Gael Senators gives rise to one of the difficulties in this debate, one of which I am well aware as Minister for Finance over the past year, namely, that this subject is capable of endless misrepresentation, something which does not assist the public confidence in what is being done. Senator Healy Eames made this point well on the conclusion of her contribution when she asked how people could have confidence in all of this. People cannot have confidence in NAMA if bogus analogies with foreign countries are introduced into the debate.

Reference has also been made to an American professor, Professor Stiglitz. This man has engaged in a crusade against President Obama in the United States.