David Norris (Independent)

-----but a plain vanilla bubble that was caused directly by Government policies. The Minister has been honest enough in addressing these matters and I will leave it at that because he is both a decent and honest man.

I agree with him that it is important that we stress the good things that have been happening. Some good indicators have occurred, although it will be quite a long time before we catch up in terms of employment. The economic indicators are to a certain extent academic at this stage, although I welcome some of the measures. I welcome the creation of the Central Bank commission and the dissolution of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, which is about bloody time. Did it not disastrously let us down? It is one of the most shocking things that the body that was supposed to be independent both of the markets and of political direction should so signally have failed to act as the watchdog. I also welcome the introduction of new accountability measures. The Minister was present, manfully, during the debate on NAMA and he knows perfectly well that Senator Joe O'Toole, seconded by myself, got significant amendments accepted by Government here in the Upper House, giving a degree of Oireachtas supervision to the NAMA legislation.

I will probably not take my full time to speak. I noted with some wry entertainment that some of the other speakers appeared to be embarrassed by the amount of time they had and had significant difficulty in using it.