Alex White (Labour)

Will the Leader be able to assist in answering a question I and others have about Anglo Irish Bank which has arisen in recent days? One of the many justifications put forward for adopting the current strategy towards Anglo Irish Bank is that it is not like Lehman Brothers, the balance sheet of which was apparently worth only a small percentage of the full value of the US economy, in that its balance sheet constituted approximately half of the value of the Irish economy. That is one of the arguments being thrown out without much more discussion. That is an extraordinary statement.

How the balance sheet of any bank, even that particular bank, and we could say more about that, or even a respectable bank, in the circumstances of the time, when we hear so much about plurality and the necessity for plurality and competition in banking and financial services, could constitute half of the value of the economy is an extraordinary state of affairs. Couple that with the fact that Anglo Irish Bank poisoned the well of Irish banking a long time before it was apparently discovered on the night of 29 September 2008. It was manifestly happening for a considerable period of time before that date.

The Taoiseach is upset at being drawn into this in that he was Minister for Finance at the time when no real action appears to have been taken. The people are entitled to question what action was taken by politicians. It is central to this debate not only to talk about the Seanies and so on but to look at what action was taken by the Government to arrest this. We are entitled to ask about regulation and such issues. It is not right for politicians, in particular the people at the top, to seek to exclude themselves from the debate or from any kind of argument in regard to it by simply saying they acted on the best advice they had at the time. It is simply not good enough. The date of 30 March 2010 will be viewed as a momentous day on which momentous decisions were made. These decisions must, however, be considered in the context of the decisions that were made exactly 18 months previously on 30 September 2008. I will repeat a question that has been asked many times and to which an answer has not yet been forthcoming. When will we find out exactly what was said by the banks on that fateful night, exactly what they sought and exactly the response of the Government in terms of the argument, rationale and justification for holding on to what was clearly a poisonous bank?