Alex White (Labour)

I want to respond to some of the Minister of State's comments. It is almost laughable for him to come to this House speaking about the "honest and full disclosure by the Government and its agencies of the appalling mess within our banks". I cannot believe the term "honest and full disclosure by the Government". I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I heard him saying that. What disclosure has occurred, whether honest or full?

Where is the inquiry and the information for the Irish people so that we can assess what is happening? Where is the clarity from the Government and where is the information from which any of us could make some kind of intelligent contribution to the question of Anglo Irish Bank, for example? We can engage in rhetoric all we want - as the Minister might accuse us - but the fact is no direct and clear information has been made available to the Irish people even on something as vital as assessing the difference between letting Anglo Irish Bank go and continuing to bail it out.

Mr. Alan Barrett of the ESRI, an independent commentator with an independent body who I presume commands respect on all sides of the House, was asked on radio what he thought of this vexed question of Anglo Irish Bank. He said he was not in a position to answer the question. It has been often said the Government holds office on trust for the Irish people, and it has no right to conceal information. It has no right to put obstacles in the way of meaningful debate, whether in these Houses or in the public domain. That is what the Government has continued to do.

We have heard that we are turning the corner but every time an announcement is made it is the final frontier and the problem has been dealt with. In the announcement before Easter the Minister said the latest measures were decisive. I know the Minister must put something into his speeches that sounds halfway intelligible or interesting but people are reeling from those announcements. That is the level of people's response. There is no notion of people being impressed that the Government has taken what the Minister calls decisive action.

I will speak to the announcement on Bank of Ireland. There will be an attempt to characterise contributions like this as negative but if there is some evidence that what happened with Bank of Ireland last week and announced yesterday represents progress, I would have no difficulty in putting politics aside and welcoming it. I would say it is good for the country and banking system, and we will now see some change. However, the speech of the Minister of State and his senior Minister is that the strongly recapitalised bank will now be in a position to provide credit to Irish businesses and households. We should note the language.

That is not what representatives of the bank say. They characterise the measures last week as providing a strong capital foundation to support the bank's future growth and assist in its prudent disengagement from State guarantees. The priority of Bank of Ireland is to unshackle itself from State involvement, which I remind everybody went up this week rather than down. There is a celebration of what happened with Bank of Ireland but the Government has purchased over €12 billion in loans from that bank, with only approximately €5.5 billion performing, for almost €8 billion. The State has had to take action with Bank of Ireland, which as we know is the healthiest of the banks that the State is dealing with.

It is not as if something suddenly happened and the State had to intervene in the way it has. The Minister of State indicated earlier that he had listened to the Opposition and various other commentators, saying that a certain Opposition party - he was not sure which - had said all our banks should be nationalised. I invite the Minister of State to tell us which party he had in mind. If the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, were here I would ask him to indicate who he had in mind when he said yesterday that there were people in the Opposition advocating that the whole system be nationalised.