Credit Institutions (Financial Support) (Revocation) Scheme 2025: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Conor Murphy (SF), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I welcome the Minister and thank the Leader for facilitating today's debate. I raised an objection to how this was passing through the House yesterday. It passed through the Dáil without debate, which Members found unfair and objectionable. We felt the Government did not facilitate proper scrutiny of the legislation. I welcome the opportunity to raise a number of questions this afternoon. A number of speakers have made the point that these regulations were brought in for a time and a specific set of circumstances, which is quite right. The obligations under them were brought in to respond to a particular crisis. Arguably, in terms of transparency and reporting, if those obligations had been there prior to the financial crisis of 2008, we might not have ended up in such a mess. While the schemes themselves were limited to a certain approach, the obligations and transparency should be ongoing. The Minister in his statement said that the approach that has since been taken in EU and domestic legislation has more than compensated for the removal of these, and that this is to remove duplication. That would lead us to believe that all the issues that were in the previous set of obligations under these schemes are now covered again.
The statement and briefing note this morning raises a number of questions. It talks about the rationale for the revocation of these statutory instruments, and states that three banks have already released some of the obligations related to CIFS and ELG schemes. Can the Minister outline the current obligations that the banks are still under and that are relevant to these statutory instruments?
It also says that the obligations and rights assigned to the Minister under the scheme have largely been codified into other legislation. He said in his statement that this is to avoid duplication. For me, duplication means that they have been entirely codified into other legislation, not largely. That begs questions as to whether the powers of the Minister and the Central Bank have been wholly covered by other legislation. An assurance was therefore required that this does not mean a reduction in ministerial powers. I have heard Senators Crowe and O'Reilly say that these things are covered and this is a duplication, and that as a matter of fact there are more or stronger obligations in terms of transparency. I would like to hear that response from the Minister himself. Can he give a guarantee that no changes to oversight of the banking sector will be introduced by the revocation of these statutory instruments?
There was also the question of the banking remuneration section, which stated that taxpayers covered €2 billion, as Senator Joe O'Reilly said. That is misleading because there was also interest on the loans borrowed to bail out the banks. Has the entirety of that contribution been recovered, not just the €2 billion itself? Those are a couple of questions. Given that we were unable to secure a debate on this in the other House, I hope we receive sufficient assurances to allow us to support the passage of this. A number of questions still remain.
We want to ensure that all of the banks' reporting obligations, as well as the powers of the Ministers and the Central Bank, are covered in full by other EU and domestic legislation. I would welcome some clarity in relation to whether that €2 billion recovery includes the interest that was accrued on the loan taken out to pay that out to the banks.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10