Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 49 provides that it may consult with such other persons as the bank considers appropriate. That is what happened. We now have a Central Bank Governor who I hope, and particularly if he is listening to this debate, will consider what something is doing for competition and competitiveness in the Irish economy. However, if the bank does not consider that appropriate, it will not happen. Obviously, in the past it did not consider it appropriate because that is how we got into trouble. My preference would be to push the Central Bank to take a wider interest and, as the Minister of State said, to take a look at what the new governor of the Bank of England is doing. We have referred to bad banks but we probably had a bad Central Bank as well which did not do its job up to 2007. If they gain control of the Central Bank again, they might say they will just consult with the people they like because the choice is entirely theirs under section 49, which provides that the bank consult such persons as it considers appropriate to consult in the circumstances. We are trying to provide that it should include the interests of competition and competitiveness.

Our ability to draft these amendments was limited. When the debate was adjourned last Thursday it was adjourned to Tuesday. Tuesday means mañana in the Seanad, as the Minister of State will know from his time here, so we did not expect it to happen on Tuesday. There was hardly any time to frame amendments because they had to be tabled by 11 a.m. on Friday and we finished late on Thursday. I had hoped the Minister was moving towards running banking in the interests of the wider economy and not just as the bank considers appropriate, given that this institution really let the country down. One version of what happened is that the Central Bank was the bigger failure and the banks just did whatever they got away with. That was massively damaging to the country. At this stage, I would not be interested in what the Central Bank considers the appropriate way to regulate banks because whatever the model was it did not work and we are now paying the bill.

Why will it not consult widely before it makes regulations, as we are asking it to do in this amendment? Is it that in Ireland we always think in silos and people do not venture outside their own narrow patch, so nobody is looking after the wider national interest? Who in the Central Bank or in the Department of Finance does not want to consult the two bodies mentioned? It is really silly that they will not. Why is the Central Bank seeking such power whereby it will decide whom it will consult? That is the way it is phrased at present in that it can consult such other persons as the bank considers appropriate. The Central Bank failed and we, as legislators, are telling it to do things better in future even if, informally, it could assure the House that it will never again be dominated by the sector it is supposed to be regulating in the national interest. That is the silo mentality we have, with people not thinking outside the box or looking at other areas of the economy and the damage they do to those areas.

I regret that the amendment is not acceptable.

It would improve the Bill if it was. The Central Bank, the Department of Finance and the banks have to up their game on what they did to this country. I do not understand why the Minister of State was advised not to accept even a mild amendment like this, particularly as we thought the Minister was heading in our direction before the debate had to end rather suddenly and it turned out to be a real rather than mañana Tuesday. We hoped he would think about it more.

I do not know how this will be read outside Ireland. The Government is not willing to accept a statutory consultative role for the wider economy in the way we run banks so soon after the banks developed a rather strange and unacceptable vocabulary, as the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the President have said. It is a strange and unacceptable way of running banks. It indicates a certain dismissive nature towards Parliament when the Minister of State is advised to respond in this way. It would not have done any harm. A few egos may have been bruised a little but that is mild compared to what has happened to the rest of the country. The Minister of State has had to deal with that in terms of special needs assistants and reductions in pay and child benefit.

It is strange that we cannot have a mentality that it is a good idea to have people on board discussing what this will do for competitiveness and competition. As we have said ad nauseam, Ireland has high cost and sheltered sectors, which restricts our ability to develop competitive international sectors. Banking is one of those sectors; no other sector has imposed such a burden on the rest of us. It is regrettable that there is a mentality of not reforming what should be reformed and continuing to defend what we used to do in the past, given all the evidence of the damage that has been done to the country.