Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

If we had had a small portion of the €2.5 billion in profits the banks made last year, I have no doubt it really would have been helpful to the Exchequer in dealing with all of those measures the Minister of State has just described. The Minister of State is clearly not going to do this in this Finance Bill but let us not wait until the third crisis, which is not far away. I would suggest climate change is a top contender as well as Brexit. We should not wait until the next crisis before we say we should have taxed the banks. I urge the Minister of State to keep an eye on this issue over the next year. I hope we can have a forward looking conversation on this issue when we debate the Finance Bill next year.