Sean Barrett (Independent)

I congratulate you, a Chathaoirligh, on your election. I also congratulate all the other officeholders in the Chamber.

A cloud over the country has two origins: the bank rescue on 29 and 30 September 2008 and the rescue of the country on 1 December 2010 when we had to receive an €85 billion bailout from the IMF, the European Union and the ECB, €35 billion of which was for the banks and €50 billion for the Department of Finance. These two events illustrate a serious problem of moral hazard, failed bankers, failed regulation of the banks and failed policy making at senior level. In this Seanad we will have to provide for checks and balances, scrutiny and accountability tests on all of the people who have brought the country to the desperate economic situation in which we find ourselves. That will be our test - to prove to those who sent us to the Seanad that those who got the country into this economic situation will be called to account and subject to scrutiny and that we will not have the opt-out mentioned in the Nyberg report that the cause was a collective mentality. People made these choices. We tried to rescue a banking system which was five times the size of the economy, as outlined in the letter to the IMF from the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Honohan. That is imposing a burden on the unemployed, those who have had to leave the country and generations ahead. The people want the answers that have not been provided for that conduct. I hope the Cathaoirleach will assist the House in having some of these issues resolved because the path to reform is ensuring these events never happen again. We must deal with the reasons we had to be rescued by the IMF and the banking system was able to so easily lobby the Government one evening and walk away with unlimited guarantees at such cost to the rest of society.