Just spent a few hours watching the debate on the Credit Institutions Bill 2008 which I still don’t fully understand or like the sound of. Labour were the only party opposing the bill in the end. It has passed all stages with 124 in favour and 18 against.

I did twitter the other day about the paucity of financial/economics bloggers in Ireland – if you are blogging about the bailout guarantees/recession/banks – please leave a comment with a link and I’ll link to you!

Back to the goings on in the house – 142 TD’s were present plus John O’Donoghue who did a lot of bell ringing for Ciunas – I’m not sure where the other 23 were – The Big Intelligent Man From Offaly was in France lunching with Sarkozy. But overall what struck me was the fact that there were lots of TD’s busy talking, or voting or actually being present. Yes I know this is what they say they do all the time but infact the amount of legislation passed by the Oireachtas in the past number of years is shockingly low. So it was good to watch them work even if I think the whole thing is going to come back to bite us in the arse bigtime.

Pity the poor Senators who are about to start debating at 2.30am. Shane Ross was probably napping all day in preparation and now has an IV drip of Lucozade or Red Bull running! Actually when I’m about to hit the hay that image will give me nightmares.

However all this staying up late will stand them in good stead tomorrow night for Palin vs. Biden won’t it?