Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

——including those in Europe and in the Far East economies. If people wish to fly in the face of the facts, we should let them, but it is determined and clear that the US economy accounts for 35% of global or world GDP, a vast stake to have in global business, economic and capital movements. Let us consider the origins of capital which drive global economic activity at a world level. Upwards of 50% and 60% of the capital flows of the world economy are under United States control.

We have come through an extraordinary period of intensified year on year globalisation since the early 1990s involving Brazil, India, Russia and China, which are new emergent economies. This is balancing the virtually unipolar nature and profile of the world economy. Only for those emerging countries we would be in a far worse place because their strong growth has acted as a powerful countervailing force to USA dominance of the market economy at a global level.

Few people warned about it. As I recall it, the Bank for International Settlements based in Basel was one of the few institutions that warned of asset price bubbles and their potentially difficult and dangerous consequences to the world economy some years prior to this collapse. Its report was published and it was given a one-day, front page outing in the Financial Times and, as I recall, then it was swiftly ignored and passed on. People assumed the gnomes in Zurich would take a conservative view and that particular institution is perceived, somewhat like our Central Bank, to be a conservative voice, always uttering the statutory warning to hold on, to be careful, to watch out and so on. That occurred here to a certain extent as well. In fairness, the Bank for International Settlements warned about this asset price bubble, which is not a remarkable thing. Such bubbles have happened since time immemorial. When one pumps liquidity or cheap credit into a financial system, there are consequences in terms of underlying asset prices and their real value. Inflation occurs in their value and this took place throughout the globe from the United States to Ireland to China or anywhere one cares to mention.

There are particular lessons we must learn in terms of how we control and patrol our banking system, the bankers who lend and, increasingly, how we patrol and impose surveillance on the development of our property market in future. Some Members, although not especially the last speaker, on the left in this House and the other House seem to believe one can control property prices while at the same time having virtually no rezoning for residential purposes. This was one of the causes of the spike in property prices in Ireland. When some parties are in charge of a local authority, they decide they are against all rezoning in a blanket fashion, therefore causing a constraint.