Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I thank Senator McFadden.

When I was preparing for this debate, I took some time to read the Minister for Finance's statement on banking and the supplementary documentation supplied to the Dáil yesterday. As I was reading the main content of the document, my eye caught the legal notice on the first page. It states:

None of the Minister for Finance, the Department of Finance, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Asset Management Agency or any of their agents or advisers makes any representation, express or implied, with respect to the accuracy, verification or completeness of any information contained in this document, or accepts any responsibility for its contents.

With such a statement at the beginning of a briefing document for a discussion on such important legislation, is it any wonder people such as me and Senators Alex White and McFadden are justifiably sceptical about the statements we hear made on yesterday's announcement? My party voted in favour of the bank guarantee scheme and I spoke in the debate that night. I believed then and still do that it was right to vote in favour of it. However, we were offered the guarantee as something that would deal with the difficulties the banks were facing and would move the economy forward. That did not happen.

The previous recapitalisation of the banks cost approximately €11 billion. That was also put forward as an injection to get banks lending again, but that did not happen either. Now we have the third attempt by the Government to deal with the issues raised in the banking industry and are asked to believe this is the big bang that will sort out everything and get credit flowing again. Such a track record stretches credibility for us to accept it. I am reminded of what happened in the general election of 2007 and how the country was festooned with posters proclaiming, "A lot done, more to do". Yesterday we saw what the "more to do" was all about. The people were truly chilled by what it had done to them and will do to them.

Among the huge facts about the scale of the problem unveiled yesterday three stand out; two are economic and one is political. The first economic point is that the national debt will be doubled. The second is that if the plan is carried out, Anglo Irish Bank will receive approximately €40 billion of taxpayers' money, which is more than all of the tax revenue in a given year. The political point is that the one person at the centre of this cobweb of regulatory failure and business malpractice is the Taoiseach because he was Minister for Finance during the period when it took place and had ultimate responsibility for the regulatory regime in place, the spend and tax policies of the country and is now running it. He is at the centre of the cobweb of accountability and regulatory collapse.

Despite everything that took place yesterday, three very big questions remain unanswered. The first, to which many of my colleagues have pointed, concerns the future of Anglo Irish Bank. I will emphasise the question I asked earlier: why is the course of action to manage debt open to Independent News and Media and Waterford Wedgewood not open to Anglo Irish Bank? What is the future of Ireland's banking industry? What is the plan for consolidating and integrating it? We know two of our major banks have 30 days in which to come back to the Government with a plan. What is the future of the tens of thousands working in the banking industry? It must be pointed out that almost every other developed economy throughout the world put in place plans for banking capitalisation and to solve the problems of the banking industry a year ago. Why has it taken us so long to do this? With all of the claims made for competence, credibility and agility on behalf of the Government, the fact that it took so long to put a bad plan in place only proves to me that the only thing it is good at in dealing with the banking crisis is being consistently wrong.