Rush to recapitalise will not solve all our ills

AS the banking saga continues to drag on, one crucial point being lost in the hype about consolidation is that thousands of jobs and countless Irish businesses are in danger of being lost to the economy.

What is being lost in the rush to sort out the banking mess is that recapitalisation of the banks will not sort out the difficulty of firms getting their hands on cash. This is pretty fundamental stuff and a problem not unique to Ireland.

Despite the injection of £37 billion (€43bn) by Gordon Brown into the British banking sector, UK businesses continue to struggle for funding due to the ongoing inability of English banks to raise enough funds to lend to an increasingly cash-starved business sector.