David Norris (Independent)

During May and June 2007 an inspection of commercial property lending in Bank A found that 28% of the loans had breached the bank's credit policy, but inspectors reported no high priority issues. Nearly one third of the bank's loans were rotten, yet they were not worried about them. In December 2007 inspectors were told that lenders had no concerns about the ability of five large commercial property borrowers at five institutions to meet future repayments. Professor Honohan's report reads: "This optimism subsequently proved in all cases to have been mistaken". This would be laughable were the situation not so desperately serious.

I raise the question of the scope of the report.

On page 13 — unlucky for some — the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, a distinguished man from my own university, states: "While the final guarantee decision was taken under pressure of events, the meetings on the night of 29/30 September 2008 were the culmination of an intensive series of interagency meetingsthat had been taking place, and had greatly intensified...". He goes on, and I hope the Minister will comment in his reply, to state: "Despite the relative absence of detailed written records, it is clear that the meetings during this period, which involved substantial legal work, made the authorities increasingly better prepared to act as the weeks unfolded".

This was a series of crisis meetings on the most extraordinary night in the financial history of this State and apparently there are no written records of it. Why? If legal opinion was sought and gained, where are the legal records? We are entitled to know, and I want that night to be investigated.