Madam, – In Tuesday’s Dáil debate I asked the Minister for Finance about the claim by Morgan Kelly of UCD that on September 29th the Department of Finance sought to exclude Anglo Irish Bank from the guarantee but were overruled by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance. Mr Lenihan’s response is intriguing: “The only decision the Government had to take was whether we would proceed to guarantee all institutions or whether we could contemplate the nationalisation of this institution as we are doing and guarantee the rest of them”.
But it appears that the Department of Finance came to that meeting with a ready-made Bill to take over Anglo Irish Bank. According to Mr Lenihan: “The only legislation before the Taoiseach and I on that evening was a Bill which, in all material terms, is the same as the Bill before the House today” ie, the Bill to nationalise Anglo Irish Bank.
It would appear therefore that Finance came with a Bill to nationalise Anglo and left with an instruction to prepare legislation to guarantee €400 odd billion of liabilities in all six financial institutions. This of course would explain why the Dáil was forced to adjourn several times on September 30th, because the Guarantee Bill was not ready.
I am not ascribing any ulterior motivation to either the Minister for Finance or to the Taoiseach. But there seems no doubt now but that at the fateful meeting on the night of September 29th, guaranteeing Anglo Irish liabilities was not the preferred choice of the Department of Finance. – Yours, etc,
PAT RABBITTE, TD,
Labour Party spokesman
on justice,
Dáil Éireann,
Dublin 2.