John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The argument is somewhat repetitive of the argument on amendment No. 4. I would like to point out that our country disproportionately relies on foreign direct investment in the export sector and on the employment practices of multinational companies. Many multinational companies have clauses stating that persons who become bankrupt, engaged with bankruptcy services or enter into arrangements with creditors, find themselves specifically excluded. I acknowledge the point made by the Minister that there are limitations to what our jurisdiction can impose on internationally-accepted employment practices. In tabling this amendment it was principally, but not exclusively, due to that fact.

I am sorry if I sound like a broken record, but suggestions are being made by others that being involved in this process is intertwined with personal responsibility. Of course, there are people engaged in this process because of their irresponsibility. Irresponsibility is not confined to the members of society who find themselves in this situation because they made bad personal debt-incurring decisions but may extend to those who gave them advice concerning it. We are very fond of blaming the bankers but the reality is that there were many self-interested parties other than self-interested bankers who were complicit in this national conspiracy to fling debt around like snuff at a wake. They included self-interested lawyers who often stood to gain from conveyancing and from self-interested politicians who refused to acknowledge the possibility that short-term corrections in the economy might have forestalled or prevented the disaster which occurred, but which might have been politically unpopular and were not taken because of the next election. I think the record should reflect that.