Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. Senator Ó Brolcháin said people of a certain calibre must be elected to Parliament and that our parliamentary system was not working. What we need are people who will provide answers and Ministers who will indicate that the buck stops with them. There is no doubt that the buck stopped with no one during the terms of office of recent Governments. The buck does not stop with local authorities, the HSE, the National Roads Authority or any Minister. It is this which got us into the situation in which we find ourselves. As a public representative, while one can go to one's local authority, the HSE and various Departments, or write or submit questions to the Minister, the problem is one will get no answer. I have heard politicians and commentators state how a certain type or class should be a TD or Minister. When one looks back at all the Government appointments over the years and considers that the Government has appointed all types of people to various bodies that advise Departments and Ministers on issues, what kind of an input have these appointees made or is it that the individual Ministers of the Government have not taken heed? There have been people from all brands of society appointed to various boards and quangos. I do not go down the road with Senator Ó Brolcháin. I think the reason is that the buck does not stop. The buck should stop some place. We must have a Government whose members will say a person is answerable.

Since we resumed in September, there has not been a week that we have not discussed finance and the state of the economy, but we have not got any answers to any concrete questions. The man who is full of bluff and bluster is the Minister for Finance. He is the king of them all. He has not given us any straight answers to questions that have been asked over the past two years, and that is on the record. Everything he has proposed has failed.

I raised this question on two previous occasions, once with the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, and once with the Minister for Finance, and got no answer. The question concerns a plan put forward previously by the Government which allows for €2.7 billion of funds over the period for advisers, legal and otherwise, and valuers to look at the valuations in banks. How much of that money has been spent? I raised the level of payments being made daily or weekly. I am led to believe that in some cases senior advisers who went into banks to value loans were paid approximately €3,500 a day and juniors were paid between €700 to €1,000. That is incredible.

The Minister of State stated:

The Government will also undertake a process of significant restructuring and right-sizing of the banks to reduce their balance sheets. In this context, all land and development loans below €20 million in Bank of Ireland and AIB will be transferred to NAMA.

Incidentally, he might explain what "right-sizing" means as well. If that is the case, must those advisers and valuers value all those loans as well?

Recently at the Committee of Public Accounts, NAMA accused the banks of giving misleading and false information on valuations. I believe that if there is no market, one cannot put a value on anything. If there is no market, how can one value anything? NAMA put in its own advisers to value something that has no market and when there is no market, it has no value. NAMA has reduced the capital in the banks and applied too large a haircut, which has greatly reduced the viability of the banks. That is what has happened. Now NAMA is accusing the banks of giving false and misleading information at the Committee of Public Accounts and we heard only this week that the Garda is going in to investigate the matter as well. Where will this all lead? Will the Minister of State inform the House whether all the loans below €20 million in Bank of Ireland and AIB have been or will be valued and whether this will increase the burden of cost above the €2.7 billion previously outlined by the Minister for Finance? He might also confirm the daily rates being paid to those advisers because some of them are the ones who got us into the problems we are in. In my view, they are the exact same people. There are some property valuers among them who said there would be a soft landing. How can one have a soft landing in property? If there is word of a soft landing, everyone will wait until the market is at the bottom. They will purchase on the way down.

The biggest problem is finding a floor for the property market. When will NAMA, which is probably the biggest owner of property in the world, probably bigger than those such as Mr. Warren Buffett, start selling property in order that we can get a floor to the market? This is where it is at. If we get a floor and if property starts to sell in some shape or form, there will be solicitors' fees, auctioneers' fees and stamp duty, and money will start to flow. If it does not, we are doomed. We are borrowing money from the IMF and selling the State-sponsored bodies just to plug a hole in the banks which has the effect of making countless properties available which are of no value because there is no bottom to the market. The Minister of State, who stated on several occasions that this is a valuable House and who was a valuable contributor when he was a Member, might give some of those answers in his reply because I certainly want to know them.

I cannot understand the Government's approach to the tourism industry. This is one of the areas where we can get money flowing in the economy. Several commentators have advised the Minister to abolish the €10 travel tax. A long time ago the Government could have made that decision, stating it would come into effect from 1 January next. As the House will be aware, many of the tour operators and the airline operators give their prices a number of months in advance and if this decision had been taken, airlines and tourist operators could have taken it into account in their promotions from 1 January. If this is announced in the 7 December budget, it will be too late by at least two or three months for 2011. I cannot understand why the Government will not make some decision. Of course, the Government has suffered from paralysis for the past two years. That is biggest problem that has faced the country.

I look forward to the legislation on the Anglo Irish Bank buy-back, which the Minister of State said the Attorney General is examining. He might give Members the date on which this legislation will be presented. Will it be in the House before Christmas or what is the story?