Banks backed in ‘panic’: Darling

IRELAND’S decision to guarantee the savings of the banks “smacked of panic rather than a plan” according to Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling.

He also said that he first heard of Ireland’s bank guarantee, which was enacted in September 2008, on BBC radio.

In his memoirs, Mr Darling spoke of his fears that British savers would move their money to the British branches of Irish banks.