Alex White (Labour)

While I do not want to misrepresent him, Senator MacSharry stated that it often occurred to him that this type of legislation ought to have been introduced before now, and I share his sentiments in that regard. He is absolutely right.

On many occasions the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, have sat here in this House. I must sit down at some stage, if I ever have time, and go through the debates because I can recall on many occasions the robust resistance from the Minister and the Government on certain policy choices which Members on this side were advocating, particularly on intervention in the banks. I remember being told, in fact, almost to the point of being ticked off, not by the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, but by others, about the extraordinary reputational damage that would be caused to Ireland, for example, by any signal that there would be substantial State intervention in the banking system at an early stage in the crisis, that this could not happen, that the reputational damage this would cause would be extraordinary, and that we were doing a disservice to the State by even talking about it or advocating it. Sadly, many months of reputational deterioration for this country later, the Government has found itself in a position where it must make these decisions. The difficulty is that if these were decisions that had been made in a timely fashion they would not look like decisions that had to be dragged out of the Government which, ultimately, is the way they now look for history to see.

I heard Senator MacSharry speak of his understandable opposition to any notion of default, with which I agree. I do not direct this personally at him, but I worry sometimes when people say we will not default because when certain persons say things, I am often tempted to think that in fact that is precisely what will happen. The Minister stated there would not be intervention in the banks; we had intervention in the banks. The Minister stated repeatedly there would not be any question of the IMF; we had the IMF. All of the things that were never going to happen, happened. I worry when Members on the Government side state that we will never default. I start wondering is something going to happen that they have not told us about because often the polar opposite to what the Government states is its policy ends up being done at the end of the day.

On the content of this legislation, as Senator Donohoe pointed out, of course, resolution legislation and the kinds of mechanism that are at least signalled in this Bill are necessary. There is no question but that the great bulk of what is in this legislation is, in fact, necessary.

In case I go off the point, I share Senator Donohoe's point, which perhaps Senator MacSharry needs to understand. As I understood it, Senator Donohoe was not advocating any restructuring of the debt held by senior bondholders. He was simply stating, as certainly is my view, that there should be legislative provision for such an eventuality, not that it should be triggered.