Mr Lee said the Irish people were too passive as a nation and didn't like rocking the boat. But he believed the boats of the banks needed to be rocked big time.

The recently elected Dublin South TD was speaking at a Clonmel Chamber of Commerce lunch at the Park Hotel in Clonmel last Friday.

RTE's former economics editor captivated the audience of Clonmel 's business and local authority leaders in a speech and questions and answer session that lasted more than an hour.

Mr Lee said NAMA represented a huge bail out to the banks and the Irish tax payer was giving a lot away for nothing.

The government was going to spend j54billion with no guarantee that the banks will start lending to businesses again. He didn't believe the banks would resume lending for a period of time.

Fine Gael had a proposal for a "good bank" that would start lending immediately but the Minister for Finance dismissed it out of hand.

Mr Lee said he didn't trust the banks as institutions. They were driven by one thing – profit. This was absolutely fine but they must recognise what they are.

He recalled the the bail out given in relation to the AIB subsidiary ICI in the 1980s and pointed out that within a few years the banks "peed in our eyes with tax evasion schemes". He had a huge file on banking scandals.

Mr Leesaid he had no confidence that NAMA will achieve what was needed to be achieved and he didn't believe it would collect 80% of the bad loans on its books by 2020.

Mr Lee also expressed concern that the people of this country weren't pulling together to overcome this economic crisis.

He cited two studies of some of the most successful international companies ranging from Shell to Microsoft that found several key characteristics they shared: a great sense of identity and loyalty among its workforce, tolerant management that allowed staff the room to develop ideas, a strong connection to the outside world and very conservative approach to finances. The studies also found that these companies never put profits first. Profits came second to producing the best product in their field.

He was worried that Ireland and the Irish people were not reflecting these qualities. The Irish people weren't pulling together as they began to do in 1986 during the last recession and there was no sense of identity. They were blaming each other. He saw the public service versus the private sector on a recent Frontline show hosted by Pat Kenny.