Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

I welcome the investigation of the banking reports by the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, the establishment of a banking inquiry and the review of the Department of Finance over the period to which the Minister of State referred.

However, there are other very important issues. There is a need to ensure there is a rapid investigation by the Garda and State authorities to restore confidence in our economic system. It has been a long time since the Garda went into the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank. We need to know how that investigation is proceeding and whether prosecutions will be forthcoming from it. If anything is sub judice, it will hinder the work we can do in regard to other aspects of the investigation.

We have put much time and money into NAMA but we now find that the information we were given last October is complete bogus. We cannot allow that sort of thing to happen. We cannot investigate this crisis, the way it has affected taxpayers and what it will cost them in future only to find the banks are giving us the wrong information, either deliberately or they are somehow not capable of putting the information together. That does not inspire taxpayer confidence in the Government's ability to handle this crisis.

I hope we will see genuine changes in the way budgets are prepared in future and that all the announcements are not just made on budget day and that we are given some indication as to the position for the following year or the following couple of years.

Will the Minister of State indicate whether there will be interim reports? We do not want to wait three or four years before the final reports land on a Minister's desk when many of the issues about which we are talking will be resolved and the information may well be out of date.