Joe O'Toole (Independent)

It is an appalling debate and I have learned nothing from it. It is disgraceful. This kind of thing gets us nowhere — constant heckling, no points being made, just landing blows and nothing to be learned from it. If anybody wants to read this debate next week and learn something from it, show it to me. I listened to it all and it gets me nowhere. I refer to both sides of the House.

I could take issues, but I will give one example as I do not have time to deal with much of it. Professor Honohan's report, for instance, takes four pages to deal with one item, that is, the directors' compliance statement. As far as I recall, the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, was here when the Bill that dealt with directors' compliance statements, which became section 45 of the Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Act 2003, came to the House. I have a vested interest in this because I chaired the audit review group which required, requested and demanded that a directors' compliance statement be put in place. I will tell the House what happened.

I reported to the PD Minister, Deputy Harney, whose policies I disagree with fundamentally. I made the case to her as to the importance of this directors' compliance statement and why it needed to be done. She accepted it fully and she put it fully into the legislation. That legislation was published and every party that has spoken here tonight so far, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael — I take Labour out of it as that party did raise issues in the other House on it — operated against it and put pressure on Deputy Harney to change it. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael supported all the main accountancy bodies which opposed this, and then the Minister changed it. I tried to get it changed back here in the House where the Bill was introduced and I could not get the support needed for it. Eighteen months ago when a companies Bill was being brought through by the Tánaiste, Deputy Coughlan, I tabled an amendment, in line with the Company Law Reform Group report and in line with what was reported by the OECD, in order to get that implemented then. Even the weak section finally inserted in the Bill has never been implemented by the Government, which must take responsibility because not implementing the section was wrong. This is a major issue.

Professor Honohan was clear in his report. According to him, there were problems with regulation, banking practices and Government policy. There is no question in this regard, as that was the reality. I am being asked to vote my confidence or lack thereof in the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, but this debate is occurring in a vacuum and is disconnected from what we are doing. We could change the Government in the morning, but the difficult decisions taken to date have been necessary. It is my understanding of Fine Gael policy that, even though it opposes NAMA, it would implement NAMA were it in government tomorrow morning. Someone riddle me that and explain how it would bring us forward because I do not understand.

Regarding the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank, a matter the House spent long nights discussing, Professor Honohan stated in his report that, while the issue could be argued this way or that way, doing it six months earlier or later would not have made a whit of a difference.

Certainly Government policy was at fault to a significant extent. I fought, argued and negotiated with the current Taoiseach on issues of, for example, taxation policy because I fundamentally disagreed with the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government in that regard. He argued from a principled point of view. The idea that he betrayed the country is nonsense. He did what he believed was right for the country while I believed he was wrong. One must consider these issues in all sorts of ways.

I know none of the people who forecast the recession. I have never met them. Behind me on my office wall, I have every forecast from every economist made in the past X years, including and up to 2008 when they were still making contrary statements. The new economist in the Department of Finance who was supposedly the only person who identified the recession did so in April 2008, four months beforehand. He concluded his statement by saying that, even though a recession was on the way, it was going to be worse because interest rates were going to climb. There was no question.

Where does this leave the two parties? Everyone could see the books before the last election because the parties were invited to examine them. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made their proposals for Government. Both sets of policies were dependent on 4% growth in the economy. If people in the Opposition claim they saw the recession coming, yet they still made a series of proposals to the public based on 4% growth, I do not buy it.