Shane Ross (Independent)

The Minister was very keen on giving us a lecture on banking. I am grateful to the Taoiseach for the fact that the limit of the Minister's ambitions appear to be the Department of Defence, because the Minister does not know an awful lot about banking. Senator Cassidy knows more about banking but that is because he read it from a script. The Minister said something interesting. He said that if we had interfered with what was happening in the banking sector, that would have been political interference. God forbid that a Fianna Fáil Minister should indulge in political interference in anything that was none of his business. Perhaps the Minister does not know - he is only Minister for Defence, the most junior of Cabinet Ministers - that the Government appoints the board of the Central Bank.