‘Paying bond holders saved deposits’

Irish depositors would have lost all their money had the Government burned the bondholders, the ECB president has pointed out in a seven-page letter about the banking crisis.

Mario Draghi, replying in detail to a letter from Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy, denied comprehensively forcing Ireland to pay off the senior bondholders in Anglo Irish and the other banks that cost more than €67bn.

He showed, step by step, that the decisions which brought the country to its knees were taken by the government, either by acts of omission or commission from 2008 and before.