Shane Ross (Independent)

They were meant to be preliminary reports, blazing a trail for the next one. Professor Honohan said he was not sure there was an awful lot left to investigate. I would be interested in hearing the Minister of State's response to that remark. Professor Honohan was really saying we had got to the bottom of the problem by analysing it. I do not really agree with that because one of the extraordinary points about the reports is that at no stage do they name names. I do not believe there is a single name therein.

In his report Professor Honohan is very coy when he mentions the strong political connections among certain powerful individuals in Irish Nationwide Building Society and Anglo Irish Bank. He almost goes the whole way towards naming them. However, we all know who he is talking about. There is reluctance to name anybody in the reports. The public needs and has a right to know, not because it is involved in some vengeance session. It has a right to know who was doing what and how much power was in the hands of the bankers in question. It will not be good enough to state what went wrong with the structures. We know what went wrong; I wrote a book about it and could have told one about it six months ago. I did not need Professor Honohan or anybody else to tell me.

It is important that we delve a little deeper into what happened and the information on how various transactions took place and the systems and individuals who were at fault in respect thereof. We are entitled to know because the people in question were incredibly well paid. Some were paid millions every year. Mr. David Drumm of Anglo Irish Bank took away €4.8 million in his last year in office. We are entitled to know whether individuals such as him were doing a proper job and whether they were to blame. We are entitled to know what was occurring to the point of full transparency. With regard to the Central Bank and Financial Regulator, it was not good enough to say there had been system faults.

The Government needs to consider an issue on which the reports did not touch. One of the problems is the reports' terms of reference. Nobody has been able to explain to me or anybody else why, in the name of God, they do not cover the period beyond 28 September 2008. Thank God, several of them go beyond their terms of reference and have traced events that happened a little beyond 28 September 2008.

As the Governor of the Central Bank said this morning, in order to ensure many of these events do not happen again, we should be able to examine the means of appointment — for instance, the appointment of the new directors, not just those of the nationalised bank, Anglo Irish Bank, but also those of Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, who are to be appointed by the Government. We should ask whether it is right that the Regulator and the Central Bank should have political appointees on their boards.

The issue of political appointees is a delicate one. It is one many others and I have tackled in this House for many years. I do not approve of the way appointments are made, as political appointees are abused. Favourites of the Government in power are appointed because they are favourites of political parties. We must decide whether this system is in the interests of the nation and whether it is to blame. There are people, whom I will not name, appointed to the boards of all the banks who are patently not competent to be there. They are there because they have an allegiance to a political party. This game is still being played, even in this utterly fragile, precarious economic position. The banks are fragile and the nationalised bank, Anglo Irish Bank, is already becoming a plaything of politicians, particularly on the board. That we could allow this to happen not only to Anglo Irish Banks, as is occurring, but also to the Central Bank and the new Financial Regulator is intolerable.

There is no indication whatsoever from the Government and in the report that the abuse to which I refer will be brought to an end. God help us if we do not bring it to an end. I warn the Minister of State that if we continue down this road, circumstances will get worse, not better. If the individuals concerned – I am not referring solely to Fianna Fáil — are prepared to do what they are doing now when the institutions are in such a precarious situation, they will abuse the system like hell when the banks are in a slightly more stable position. I appeal to the Minister to put in place structures, whereby those appointed by him or his colleagues will be subject to Oireachtas scrutiny in order that we can determine whether they are suitable.