Shane Ross (Independent)

It was the Government which allowed the banks to behave in the way they did, was close to the developers and let the regulator off the hook. Why did it do this? Today we are being told time and again not to worry and everything is fine because we are only going back as far as 2006. That is the spin that has been put on it. Social welfare payments are returning to what they were in 2006. Imagine that being the boast of a Government - that we are only going back four years. That is what the Government has done. It is taking us back four years, but it has taken the economy back a lot further.

I ask the Government why, although it initially managed some aspects of the banking crisis with a certain amount of integrity, it began in the middle of the crisis to practice the old habits Fianna Fáil, apparently, cannot and never will discard. Why did it make political appointments - appointments of individuals identified closely with the current regime - to the banks?