Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

There is a need for a debate on banking because it is going to take the equivalent of the extra interest being paid by 500 householders this year to give Mr. Boucher his pension top-up. Small to medium-sized enterprises across the country are being destabilised because of bank lending policy. Elderly shareholders in the two major banks bought shares to protect their pension incomes in their later years. An enormous number of people have pensions invested with those two banks which are now decimated because of their lending policies. This is what is driving the general public mad as regards the banks and the way the Government is handling the situation.

If the Government just wants to hand out platitudes and try to spin a story to the effect that everything is fine, it will reap the anger of the general public as the bankers walk away with the millions in their enhanced pension funds. The Minister for Finance and his Cabinet colleagues need to wake up to how the general public feels about this and we could start by having a debate in this House because every single person is being hurt by present banking policy.

I, too, would love to hear good news in this House every day, but there is only one thing worse than hearing bad news all the time in the Seanad, namely, false dawns. We have had numerous false dawns in this House. We have been told that we have turned corners, that "green shoots" were discernible and everything was fine. When something happens three months later, however, such assertions are seen to be lies or false dawns at the very least. In the event, public confidence and people's security are hit even more as regards how they feel about the economy. If we are to have discussions in the Seanad based on good news, let them at least be truthful for the benefit of the general public.