Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Finance to the House. I acknowledge the enormous amount of work that he has done in managing the economic crisis of this country for many years. I am also conscious that this may be one of the last times he appears here as Minister for Finance but maybe I am being presumptuous. I am always conscious about political legacy and the sale of a quarter of the AIB shares may be his final political legacy.

In principle, I welcome the gradual and managed disposal of these shares. I also welcome private involvement in any bank going forward. We must learn from many of the mistakes. The AIB has been effectively nationalised. This is the people's bank. This is the people's money. This debt is on Ireland Inc. and on nobody else. Therefore, we must always be conscious of the damage that was done by AIB and many other banks in terms of small business and family finance. The situation led to all sorts of macro and microfinancial disasters and implications for this country.

What has the Minister proposed? He has proposed that the State sell a quarter of AIB's shares. Analyst predictions published in the Financial Timesyesterday, and in other financial reports today and sources within the Department of Finance, and I am open to correction, have predicted that we could net €3 billion from the sale of a quarter of AIB. If that is the case, does that value the bank at €12 billion? Maybe I have been presumptuous to reach that conclusion. I ask the Minister to express his view on the matter.It is important to remember that this Government or the previous Governments and Administrations pumped €21 billion into AIB from 2009 to 2011 and so effectively completely nationalised AIB by December 2010. That is the scale of the financial commitment made by the State - €21 billion was pumped into AIB - yet we are now selling a quarter of it for €3 billion, and we might not even get that sum.

Why has the Minister for Finance made this proposal? The British election is about to take place and there is political uncertainty in this country. Is this the right time for the sale? I presume he got professional advice on the sale and it was his only consideration when he made the decision to bring his proposal to Cabinet for approval.

We represent the public but sometimes we get caught up in this little bubble called Leinster House. What does the public want? If we get all of this money then we must be responsible and the Government must pay down some of its debt. We have a serious and critical infrastructure deficit in this country. We also have a major housing crisis. We also have a major crisis in the health sector. We also have a major crisis in education and, for that matter, in other supports allied to all of those areas. The public has an expectation. We would fail the public if we did not communicate that expectation to the Minister which is, at best, all that we can do. The money should be split or divvied up. We must adopt a commonsense approach and pay down some of our national debt. Some of the money should be siphoned off and invested in capital expenditure, infrastructure, health and education.

I thank the Minister for taking time to come in here, for giving us the information and for listening to us. The public want to know the following. Where is all of this money? They have made sacrifices and suffered greatly. The Government committed €21 billion. One can be excited to get €3 billion but the figure does not represent anything like the money that was pumped into AIB. I acknowledge in principle the importance of getting the bank back into the private sector and trading as a stand-alone entity away from the State.