Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I call the attention of the House to the failure of yet another insurance company, Setanta Insurance, which was put into administration on 30 April and on 1 May will leave many van drivers and motorists uninsured. We raised this issue with the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Honohan, when he came before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform last week. His reply was interesting. He stated:

On the Setanta case, let me offer some points of information that might be of use. The company had a licence in another part of the European Union and started operating here in 2007. Although the Central Bank had no information about the company's balance sheet and finances, and the fact that it had grown to a sizeable scale, by November 2013 we had become concerned and had some concrete suggestions that there could be problems with this. We drew this to the attention of the Maltese regulatory authorities, and they took a series of actions over the following weeks

If the Central Bank knew in November and spoke to the Maltese, there should be no question that the Irish insurance compensation fund, which has already paid out €1 billion to incompetent insurance companies, should be invoked in this case. Will the Leader ask the Tánaiste what representations have been made by Ireland to Malta on the issue?
I wish to refer to the gauntlet thrown down by Jean-Claude Trichet to the Parliament of this country. He stated he will not appear before the banking inquiry. This is a parliamentary democracy and he is a public servant. Other people sought to defy Parliament and the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy McGuinness, gave them their answer. Mr. Trichet is criticised roundly in a book published yesterday by Philippe Legrain, who was President Barroso's economic adviser from February 2011 to February 2014. Mr. Legrain writes that when Ireland sought relief in November 2010 it was turned down and:

Instead, eurozone policymakers, notably ECB President Trichet, outrageously blackmailed the Irish Government into making good on its guarantee, by threatening to cut off liquidity to the Irish banking system - in effect, threatening to force it out of the euro. Thus, having exhausted the borrowing capacity of the Irish government, the creditors of Irish banks could now call on loans from other eurozone governments along with Britain's, Sweden's and the IMF. This was a flagrant abuse of power by an unelected central banker whose primary duty ought to have been to the citizens of the countries that use the euro - not least Irish ones. Bleeding dry Irish taxpayers to repay foreign debts incurred by Irish banks to finance the country's property bubble was not only shockingly unjust. It was a devilish mechanism not for safeguarding financial stability in the eurozone - which would be the ECB's defence for its actions - but rather for amplifying instability.

Mr. Legrain's authoritative account of this affair indicates Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet cannot be allowed to defy the Parliament and if Deputy Lynch wishes him to appear he certainly has an awful lot to answer for.