Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second Senator Crown's motion on the suspension of Standing Orders. The Minister for Finance should come to this House to tell us the terms of reference for the inquiry. Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet should also come here. We need to know what the accountants and auditors were up to during all of this and why the traditional reticence of civil servants in Ireland in regard to spending and husbanding the nation's resources was suspended on an evening when €64 billion walked out the front door of Government Buildings. This has taken far too long. I commend whoever found the tapes and gave them to the media because it has put an urgency into this matter. We always knew Anglo Irish Bank was a bank for about 18 people. I was never able to figure out how it exercised an inordinate control over the Department of Finance and the Central Bank and why it became the role model for banks which, since 1783, had been run sensibly. It is time to draw all this affair into an inquiry and find out what caused so much damage to this country.