Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to support the amendment moved by Senator Donie Cassidy and to express my full confidence in the Taoiseach and the Government. I will deal with some of the points made by Senators before making other points. Senator Ross appears to be on a crusade about default on the bondholders. That is a matter for him to explain because he has not explained very well how one would deal with the inevitable fall-out from it.

That is something we might hear at some time in the future. He is also very critical of the Government for having, as he said, allowed the banks to behave in a particular way. I infer from that he intends that the Government should have intervened in the system to ensure the banks behaved in a different manner. We could all pause to consider the inevitable consequences of political interference in that manner. There is no doubt that the system in place was weaker than it needed to be but the suggestion that there should have been direct political interference would lead to a situation that would be even worse than we face.

Simultaneously, in a turn of logic that defies explanation, the Senator is critical of the Government for having put former politicians on the boards of banks, some of whom were Fianna Fáil Ministers and leaders and Ministers of the Labour and Fine Gael parties. The logic of that runs completely counter to his claim-----