This morning, I listened carefully to the chairman of the Bank of Ireland, who has announced his resignation, state that accountability for losses must be taken at the top. While I am not a fan of bankers whose irresponsibility has threatened everything that hard-working people in this country built up over the years, at least Mr. Burrows was willing to accept responsibility and take accountability to its conclusion by tendering his resignation. He is not the only individual to have done so. By resigning, his industry colleagues in Allied Irish Banks, Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Life & Permanent and Irish Nationwide, as well as the Financial Regulator, have all accepted responsibility for their actions and seen to it that accountability is taken at the top.

On the other hand, the Taoiseach appears to be the last person to do this. While he says he accepts responsibility for his actions and collectively of those of the Government during its years in office, he will not see this through to accountability. As Minister for Finance, he presided over a regime which put banks and developers before people and under which we have gone from a surplus of €9 billion to a deficit of €20 billion. His regime spent €60 million of taxpayers' money on useless voting machines and €200 million on a failed computer system for the health system, removed medical cards from people aged over 70 years and intends to remove teachers from children with special needs. The Taoiseach says he accepts responsibility but there is no accountability in that.

People are faced with job losses and massive reductions in income. The lack of confidence coming from the Government is causing frustration and a loss of morale. I stood in the kitchen of a household where the husband and wife have lost their jobs and three of their sons are unemployed. This is replicated in thousands of homes across the country.

The Taoiseach accepts responsibility for a situation in which a budget was introduced with no fiscal stimulus for job creation. I put it to him that just as the shareholders in Bank of Ireland had their say this morning, so the shareholders in Ireland Inc. will have their say on 5 June. If they proceed to vote as they are talking and they vote no confidence in the Government, will the Taoiseach accept that responsibility and will he take that accountability to the top and seek a fresh mandate for his Government from the people who see this regime as nothing other than Fianna Fáil dictatorship?

Bring on the Greens.

First, I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition on the ingenuity of his line of attack.

I thank the Taoiseach.

Second, it is the Government's determination to lead and not to snipe, and to govern and not to pontificate, and to act and not to theorise.

He will do it his way, he stated.

Unfortunately, I listen to Deputy Kenny's knockabout stuff every week despite the fact that his critique of the Governments in which I was proud to serve is that it was, as far as he was concerned, not spending enough.

He will not accept responsibility.

On every occasion now, as we seek to correct the public finances——

He did not spend, he squandered.

——Deputy Kenny criticises every action that is taken to bring the public finances under control, yet he seeks to suggest that were he in Government, not alone would he be doing this amount but much more.

Very differently.

The inability, of course, to identify any areas in which he would cut his spending programmes has been confirmed on a number of occasions.

The more he talks about——

The Taoiseach without interruption.

The bottom line is this.

They are copying our policies on a day-by-day basis.

The Taoiseach without interruption.

The bottom line is this: that after 5 June the Government will continue to take whatever steps are necessary in the interests of this country to get us back on the road to growth and prosperity.

Without a mandate.

Despite the Deputy's sniping, despite any tactic in which he wants to engage, that is what we will be doing. He will continue with his game.

Without a mandate.

Look behind you.

If the Taoiseach looks at the record, I never attempted to pontificate to him or to the Government. I put forward constructive criticisms of where he failed and at the same time I put forward constructive suggestions as to what he might do, and I will offer now another suggestion.

The Taoiseach has stated nothing more than a repetition of what he has previously stated. He states he accepts responsibility but there is no accountability in the Government, least of all from himself. He states he will do it his way and these elections are irrelevant. To hell with the people. They do not mind what the people say by their vote.

That is not what the Taoiseach stated.

They will continue on their merry way because the focus is on self-preservation from his party-political point of view.

The Government's programme has condemned every family in the country to having levered on top of them a mortgage of up to €45,000, which will deal with the bank crisis, which the Taoiseach allowed to happen despite warnings, not only from this party but also from a range of independent organisations dealing with financial direction and financial rectitude. That is what the Taoiseach has allowed to happen. The Government will impose €45,000 on every family if it proceeds with the establishment of the National Asset Management Agency. The agency has already been torpedoed below the waterline by the chief executive of the National Treasury Management Agency who, as one of the foremost public officials in the country, stated that he has no idea whether it will work. He went on to state that we have not found any solutions, and the fact that he reads more about this in the newspapers than he does from Government.

Despite the fact that the Taoiseach takes the view that we on this side of the House pontificate all of the time, I put it to him that the proposal from the Fine Gael Party to evolve out of the banks clean banks and fund those through a wholesale bank capitalised from the European Central Bank will not expose the taxpayer to a potentially devastating economic crucifixion of €90 billion assessed increase on the national debt. That is where the Taoiseach is proceeding. The chief executive of the NTMA stated that the lawyers will have a generation of field days in the courts out of the way the Government is proceeding.

If he is interested in alternative views that will not expose the taxpayer to that crippling debt, is the Taoiseach prepared discuss with me the Fine Gael proposal, which will not involve crucifying the taxpayer in this regard, which will free up credit to businesses in a short period with clean trustworthy banks where there is integrity? This would ensure that those who caused the problems with the banks in the first place will have to pay for their difficulties, following which we can then proceed to restore some confidence to business where credit begins to flow and where there is a system that will not involve the taxpayer being exposed to a potential €90 billion debt.

Get on over here.

I do not agree with Deputy Kenny's views. That is why I do not intend taking them up. I want to give my reasons. It is important that they are put on the record.

The Fine Gael plan appears to rely heavily on allowing the financial system to default on certain bonds or loans that have been issued or availed of. That has been clearly stated. In deciding whether the State can allow the financial system to default on such loans I would take account of an expert in this field, Mr. John Corrigan, director of the National Pensions Reserve Fund who, in his evidence on 14 May last to the Committee of Public Accounts, stated:

There is a close relationship in terms of how the capital markets view the bonds outstanding in respect of the banks and how they view Ireland as a sovereign borrower. Walking away from the bank debts and allowing them to default on the bonds, in effect their senior debt, would have a very negative read across for Ireland Inc. I have little doubt that the cost of borrowing to the State would hugely increase if that approach were to be adopted.

Dr. Somers stated he has no idea how that will work.

The director of the National Pensions Reserve Fund stated that, in fact, the idea Fine Gael is putting forward, which is effectively to default on some bond holders, would have the effect of hugely increasing——

It is not what we put forward.

——the cost of borrowing to the State.

Did the Taoiseach ever read it.

Considering the implications of such a default would like be severe given that we are seeking to raise €25 billion this year,——

The Taoiseach has it wrong.

——most of which will be used to deliver key public services such as education and the health service. In view of this I would be slow to take up the Deputy's offer.

The Fine Gael plan does not clearly address the central problem in our financial system of impaired assets in the land and development books of the banks.

He is telling lies.

If these difficulties are not addressed, neither the existing financial institutions nor Fine Gael's so-called national recovery bank would be able to access the credit that all parties agree is required for the economy. The NAMA proposal sets out what the Government will do with the impaired assets and without this problem being resolved there will be no resolution of our economic difficulties.

Those are the facts. The Fine Gael proposal is sparse in the detail of how it will access funding to increase credit in the economy. It states that it will access €30 billion to €40 billion of funding from the European Central Bank——

Lawyers and developers again.

The Galway tent.

——but to access this funding Fine Gael's national recovery bank would have to give the ECB assets of equivalent value. That is the reality of the situation.

The Taoiseach without interruption. Deputy Kenny was listened to in respectful silence. The Taoiseach must be listened to in the same way.

It is clearly the case that the proposal from the Fine Gael Party to default on bonds as part of its issue of dealing with the problem in the banks will, in fact, increase borrowing.

That is not the Fine Gael proposal.

It has been stated by Fine Gael's recent guru, Mr. George Lee, in an interview.

There will be €90 billion extra in debt.

Mr. Lee stated it on a number of occasions in radio interviews. He stated that one should let them go swing for it. It has also been the case made by Deputy Bruton in my presence at a meeting that I attended with Deputy Kenny. Those are the facts of the situation.

The facts are the Taoiseach never read it.

Deputy Kenny must go back to the drawing board if he thinks he will provide leadership in this situation.

An extra debt burden of €90 billion.

What we are proposing has been tested and tried elsewhere.

Where?

We are stating clearly——

Let him finish.

The Taoiseach has no idea whether it will work.

Deputy Kenny was listened to in respectful silence and the Taoiseach must be given the same courtesy.

——that we intend to get it right. We will get it right and that is what we will do.

The Galway tent.