Joe O'Toole (Independent)

-----when a well known leader of a building society was in the bar every Wednesday night trying to get us to remove the section in the building societies Bill to allow it to be easier to become public limited companies. Once they become public limited companies they are into the trap outlined by Senator Fitzgerald.

We need mutual societies. We tried to stop the change here; we could not get support. We did the same in the case of credit unions. The Leader will recall I introduced a Bill to allow credit unions extend in order to provide mortgages and to amend the 1997 Credit Union Act, and everybody on the Government side, including then Senator Mansergh, led the charge against touching that Act. These are issues that need to be addressed.

There are structural changes in our economy and we need to look at them. The same issue arose today on "Morning Ireland" when representatives from the banks and Fine Gael argued about whether it is a matter of rules or structure. It goes back to the point raised yesterday by Senator Healy Eames about a certain well-known banker walking free. In point of fact, that well-known banker - people might not know this - is under investigation by the Garda, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, his own accountancy body and the oversight body for auditing and accounting, and is also likely to hear from the DPP. It moves slowly, but it is wrong to state that the person is walking free.

The problem is this. If we go to a rules-based structure people will walk free unless one has precisely anticipated the breach of the rules. What we need is principles-based structures, which existed before there was any company legislation, where persons must act honourably and properly, and on top of that a rules-based system of internationally accepted accounting standards and auditing standards. That is not in place at present.

The UK, the US and Europe have different views. In fairness, the UK and Europe have finally almost come together on this and the US recognises this. Enron would happen again tomorrow morning in the US. They brought in legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which is rules-based and not worth the paper it is written on.

We need to debate that idea raised yesterday by Senator Harris. There are fundamental issues here and it might make people in some of the more centrist parties take a look at the kind of a country we need.