Response from Sean Sherlock (Lab) on Bailout Bill

Look, a politician with an opinion and something tangible to say in response to my query on the Bailout Bill! Ye gods, will wonders never cease?!

Adam

Just a note in response to your email. I am sure that you can appreciate that we received first sight of this legislation at 9pm approximately last night. I am not in favour of the way in which this is being rushed through. Further, the legisaltion as it is framed presently, is a “dire” piece of legislation, in that there is no clarity as to the powers of the Minister. There is no “parliamentary Oversight”. We have proposed amendments. Please see the following press release which sets out our position.

At time of writing we are presently discussing the 1st amendment. We dont know as we speak how all of this will pan out and whether the Minister will take on board our concerns.The Minister’s response to our amendments will determine our ultimate support, or otherwise, for this Bill and I am not in a position to say whether we are supporting it or not because, frankly, we just don’t know until we have voted on the amendments.

But if you read the amendments and look at the Dail transcripts you will see that we have taken a strong position on protecting the taxpayer and I personally could not support a Bill that will see the taxpayer seriously exposed without any quid pro quo for the Banks. On a daily basis I am dealing with people who are laid off from work with costly mortgages who are not given any such sweet deal. There should be no double standards on this.

Please bear with me on this. The next three or four hours will see a further change in the landscape so drop me a line then and I will let you know the position as it unfurls.

All the best

Sean

Still nothing from Fianna Failers Michael Ahern and Ned O’Keeffe, surprise surprise.

One Response

  1. My response to Sean:

    Thank you for your detailed reply Sean, I’m much more impressed with it than the “dire” response from your opposite in FG, and the non-existant responses from FF. I’ll be watching with interest.