Bankers will be held to account - Connick

"There is understandably a lot of anger out there about the lack of sufficient regulation in the banking industry but I want to assure people that anyone found to been involved in any kind of wrongdoing will be fully held to account."  

"The Government must give due process to each of the individuals involved. All the facts must be firmly established before any action is taken." 

"But every element of suggested wrongdoing in the banking sector is being investigated extensively and those found guilty of wrongdoing will face severe penalty." 

"The problems stemmed from the actions of a small number of people. The people working in Wexford banks are in no way responsible for the events of recent weeks and that is important to remember." 

"Under the Recapitilisation Scheme, total pay of senior banking executives in Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank will be reduced by 33 per cent, and further cuts are also expected to be made." 

"There is suggestion in some quarters that Fianna Fáil only nationalised Anglo Irish Bank in order to 'bail out' developers. This is not true. Had the Government not nationalised Anglo Irish Bank and the bank had gone bust, most of the bad debt would be written off which would have cost the Irish taxpayer not millions but billions." 

"The reason the Government nationalised the bank was to put some stability into the bank. Now in turn those billions of euro in bad debt will be pursued and this is in the best interests of the taxpayer." 

"When a bank goes bust, a liquidator would step in and would normally only recover 10-15 per cent of the bad debt. That situation would have had dire consequences for this country."  

"The Government have no fear or favour of any individual either investing or involved in any collusion in the Irish banking sector. All bad debtors will be rigorously chased whether that individual be a developer or otherwise." 

"In relation to AIB and Bank of Ireland, it is every individual in the State that the Government are guaranteeing, and with the €3.5 billion investment in each bank codes of conduct and safeguards are established between Government and the banks whereby banks cannot re-possess homes without having due regard to the new code of conduct set down by Government."

"Money will now be available again within the banks for business loans and first time buyers. Strict controls and regimes will be in place from here on in." 

"The events of the last number of weeks are truly unprecendented and I hope that we will never see events like this again. I have full confidence in the Taosieach Brian Cowen TD and the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan TD, to ensure that strict regulations are put in place to see that the likes of this can never happen again," concluded Deputy Connick