Bankers did more economic harm 'than IRA'

THOSE RESPONSIBLE for the banking collapse had done more damage to the economy than the IRA and should be treated as subversives, Fine Gael frontbench spokesman Leo Varadkar told the Dáil.

“The Taoiseach should make it clear to the DPP and Garda that he expects prosecutions and that any law should be used to secure it, whether it is company law, tax law or even the road traffic act,” he added.

Mr Varadkar, spokesman on communications and energy, said there was a need to restore faith in politics and in the system as well as restoring the public finances, growth and competitiveness.

“Part of that process involves ensuring that those bank executives and public officials, who through criminal acts or negligence caused this crisis, are prosecuted,” he added.

“Their arrest will send shock waves through public opinion and set the public free from the cynicism and sense of injustice which seems to be all pervasive.”

Mr Varadkar, who was speaking during the resumed economic debate, said the public was furious that none of those people had been brought to book.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said the biggest impropriety in the banking sector was the degree and pattern of reckless lending. Nama had now established that this took place, markedly in the case of Irish Nationwide Building Society and Anglo Irish Bank, and to a lesser extent in the case of AIB and the EBS.

“That pattern of reckless lending was the core problem in the banking system,” he added.

Mr Lenihan said at the time of the nationalisation of Anglo, he had pointed out that in addition to all those difficulties, there were serious issues of corporate governance.

“The Garda Síochána and the Office of Corporate Enforcement have a full investigation under way relating to these matters,” he added. Relevant interviews had taken place, or were to take place, and files were being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said Mr Lenihan.

The nature of the criminal justice system was such that investigations in this jurisdiction, and in the UK and France, took a substantial period of time in complex cases involving commercial wrongdoing with criminal implications.

“What I can assure the House is that those investigations are well under way,” he added.

Martin Ferris (SF) said his party had led the way in the North by proposing salary cuts for MLAs and higher-paid public servants.

“There is certainly scope for cuts of that nature here, particularly when one considers that the Taoiseach is the fourth highest paid head of state in the world,” he added.

The Chief Justice, he said, earned one-and-three-quarter times the salary of his US counterpart, Supreme Court and High Court judges one-and-a-half times more. Brian Hayes (FG) called for greater Government action to deal with the commercial semi-State sector. “Its employees are, effectively, public sector employees, but they have not taken any of the burdens so far,” he said.

He also called for an end to the cosy consensus which existed on issues in the Dáil. He said it was “a doss house”, where people could not speak their minds.

Paul Gogarty (Green Party) called for pay cuts for TDs and Ministers.

“We also need to scrap the ministerial Mercs as soon as possible, reallocate the Garda drivers back into working on the ground and create a pool of junior ministerial drivers,” he added.