FG hits back at Lenihan

Fine Gael has hit back at Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan's dismissal of the party's calls for the establishment of a 'good bank'.

Fine Gael spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar, issued a statement this afternoon reacting to comments made to RTÉ by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.

Mr Lenihan told the broadcaster: "I'm very disappointed by the reaction of Enda Kenny because he hasn't put forward a viable alternative to Nama".

He said he had received a 'very constructive' letter from Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton outlining her concerns about the establishment of the agency and how they could be addressed.

"But I don't see that note in what Enda Kenny said and I find his proposal in relation to setting up some new bank very strange," he told RTE Radio. "I think we need a far more realistic debate from Fine Gael on what the real problems facing the banking sector in the country are."

Mr Lenihan said the prospect of a collapse of the Irish banking sector had to be addressed or it could lead to a 'financial tsunami'.

However, in a statement issued this afternoon, Mr Varadkar said that Fianna Fáil "does not want a serious debate on the solution" to the banking crisis and described Nama as a 'gamble' which he said was 'fundamentally unfair and unwise'.

“Once again, it is their strategy to rubbish and abuse anyone who disagrees with their policies. We saw this before when they responded to Fine Gael's concerns about the property market, the banks and public finances by accusing us of talking the economy down and being unpatriotic," Mr Varadkar said.

“Nama is a €90 billion “double or quits” gamble by Fianna Fáil on the property market. A €22,500 bet for every man, woman and child in this country. Almost twenty years after the bursting of their own property bubble, Japanese property prices are still 50% below peak levels."

Mr Varadkar warned that "Many professional investors that fuelled the crisis by recklessly giving tens of billions of Euros to the banks without proper due diligence, could walk away scot-free at the expense of the taxpayers."