Eoghan Harris (Independent)

He is right, of course. I have described this as being comparable to a match where the State is the referee, only intervening when a professional foul is committed. It conjures up a scene where the referee is going to be stopping the game continually and instructing the players while the object of the capitalist exercise in game terms is to score as many goals as possible. The referee might start to decide how many goals should be scored or that first aid should be given to a worthy youth group visiting the match which would stop so that players can talk to such people. It is hard to say this and maintain any level of popularity in this society but the function of the State at the moment is to return the banks to their perceived norm as being red in tooth and claw. Banks that are functioning normally tend to give people money where they believe a return will be yielded on their investment and to withhold money from enterprises they believe will fold.

By and large, it is the least worst system in the world. There is no better one since we have tried command economies and they do not work. I agree with Senator Boyle, so what is to be done about maintaining State objectives? The answer as Senators Boyle and Alex White have suggested is to move into the higher regulatory areas of fiscal policy, not to direct specific credit policies but to introduce tax regimes that make it attractive to banks and investors to move into areas such as telecommunications to develop them and create employment. Direct interference is not a good idea.

One great advantage of this recession is that we have had a reality check throughout the system on the use of language, and on how banks and the economy function. The Irish are probably one of the best-educated peoples in the world on the functioning of the capitalist system. We are trying to get back to capitalist health and the State is doing its best to intervene where appropriate. We should not abuse language while doing so. It is ridiculous to give sops to people by saying that it will return the banks to normal, which is capitalist trading, and at the same time that it will keep on interfering with them. There must be other instruments and ways for the State to do that through taxation, fiscal policy or systems of regulation. Meanwhile, we should try to restrain our use of language and tell the truth when the people are in the mood to hear it.

Professor Stiglitz has been quoted again and again in the course of this debate as saying that what is being done here is criminal. Anybody who abuses language like that and uses the word "criminal" in that context cannot be trusted to use language or think straight in any other way.