Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

We see little attention being given today to the issues facing the country; instead the focus is on the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. The point is being missed: the people have not lost confidence in the Government because of errors made in communication, they have lost faith because of errors, misjudgments and bad decisions made by the Government that have left hard working families to pay the price for generations to come. The Government has forgotten that it was the decisions made by it that led to the IMF bailout. That is the problem and what concerns the people. Anything else is a distraction.

There is no better example I can give to highlight the poor performance of the Government than what we have learned in the last few days about the payment of bank bonuses. I have raised this issue on a number of occasions, but it is extraordinary to read that further millions have been paid in bank bonuses. It is even more extraordinary that the Department of Finance did not even know about this. The Minister must start an investigation to find out what is going on. It is quite extraordinary. I ask the Leader to ensure a full report on this issue is made available to this House as soon as possible.

It is quite extraordinary to read the details of this matter. Millions of euro are concerned. Other banks covered by the guarantee scheme paid out a total of almost €46 million in bonuses between 2008 and 2010. Anglo Irish Bank was responsible for some €20 million in bonus payments in the last months of 2008 and AIB was responsible for €20 million. This is quite extraordinary at a time when people are telling us on the doorsteps how much money they have lost this week from their social welfare payments and pay.